


Vital Signs

by sporklift



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Compliant, Declarations Of Love, Forgiveness, Heart Sharing, Hopefully not as corny as those tags make it seem, M/M, Mild Gore, Plot With Smut, Resurrection, True Love, and blow torch s'mores, and if that doesn't get you interested I dunno what to say, enemy of my enemy, here there be exposition fairies, post 3x11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 08:38:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 41,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1851610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sporklift/pseuds/sporklift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b> In which Peter Pan unknowingly uses True Love magic to resurrect Felix. </b> </p><p> </p><p>“You—”  Light flickers bright and then dim inside Felix’s skull. “You took someone’s heart for me?”</p><p>“No. That wouldn’t work. It has to…” He fades, implications taunting him from a neglected corner of his mind. “It’s got to belong to you. In a manner of speaking.”</p><p>“But mine’s gone.”</p><p>Peter swallows, blanches. He admitting weakness and all but literally on his knees - and Felix has every reason to tell him to go straight back to hell. He’s in a cage and he can’t get away.</p><p>“Lucky for you, mine fits the bill.”</p><p> </p><p>Post 3x11, canon compliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vital Signs

**Author's Note:**

> **Gaaah! After _months_ , multiple drafts, and no small number of editing sessions, this is finally done! **
> 
> This has been a mind child of mine since _A Curious Thing_ aired back in April. Basically, "What if Peter tried to resurrect Felix in the same way Snow resurrected Charming?" What was meant to be a ~10k oneshot with angst and feels evolved into...this. 
> 
> Additional warning, because the archive doesn't have this one: The first few scenes contain a few paragraphs of graphic gore. It peters out after that, but just heads up. I also take liberties and darken the whole heart-sharing thing. 
> 
> **Now edited with fewer typos!**
> 
> Anyway, without further ado: the heart-sharing fic.

**P** eter cannot recall the way he felt when he made the initial agreement with the Witch.

He remembers the mechanics - how he leaned against the wall, tilting his own murder weapon in his hand. The sheath of old worn leather compressed in his fist. He stared at the twisted blade and the meandering name scrawled into the steel. It all sits like acid on his tongue. Eyes glassy, mind numb.

He remembers wondering for a beat whatever happened to Rumple after he fled, Baelfire too. But then he reminded himself he didn’t want to know the answer. He remembers smirking when the glowering woman appeared before him in a burst of green smoke.

“Careful,” He’d said, still examining the dagger, sliding his lips upwards in a show of confidence. “Don’t let your eyes go red - it’ll clash with your skin.”

The Witch snarled, but, to Peter, it felt more like a whine. “You have my attention.”

“Excellent,” Peter smiled and made his way ‘round the chamber, circling the green woman like a vulture. “Now I could pitch a fit demanding what you’re planning to do with this dagger. But I won’t. In fact, I’ll just hand it over.”

The Witch’s eyes skittered around, mistrustful but curious.

_So curiosity does kill the cat after all._

Peter knew an opportune moment when he saw one. “All I ask are for a few amenities. Protection. A place to stay. And...one more little detail.”

“You’ve got quite the list.”

“I’m a boy who knows what he wants.”

The Witch stopped, nails turning a lighter shade with all the strain she put on her hips. “What’s the little detail?”

“Well, I’ll be helping you get your happy ending, won’t I?” Peter raised a brow. “Help me get mine.”

"How would you expect me to do that?" A green little pout matching an air of frantic put-on self-sufficiency. Peter had to make a conscious effort not to roll his eyes.

“You obviously know how to raise the dead,” Peter took lazy step to lounge against an end table. “Teach me.”

“Don’t think you’ll want to,” She said, on defensive as though this were anything but a calm business meeting. “That was a life for a life situation with the Dark One.”

“No, don’t think so. It was one life for two. Don’t try to hide back doors from me. It’s insulting.”

“And why should I? I don’t even know who you are.”

“It’s the only way you’re getting this precious dagger. You’ll get this,” He waved the weapon in front of her face. There’s a gleam in his eye as he sends it away in a flippant display of his magic, stowing it someplace safe in the forest. “When I get Felix back.”  

He didn’t know how he’d feel when the time came to raise his friend. Now that he’s breaching the chamber, ready to accomplish the deed, he still isn’t sure.

He knows he’s treading a thin line. But the fact is he doesn’t much care for lines - never has - and apparently returning from beyond the grave does not a wiser man make. Pity. But it’s a thought for another time.  He’d rather not think at all right now if he can help it. And so far so good. Even if it is mad.

The rewards will outweigh the risk. He continues to remind himself as his heels click against the veneer of the floor.  A precise and metered clopping echoing loud in his ears. Just footsteps.  One right after the other.

He raises his hand and a fire sparks in the hearth. It rolls and rises in an instant, bathing the chamber in orange and red light. Shrivelling dry heat permeates through every corner of the room before he even makes it to the center.

It’s now Peter notices the tapestries. Insignias of royal families, old folktales playing out to a happily ever after that never occurs in reality. Showcases and portraits of stallions and knights who are more symbolic than historic.

If he’ll be honest with himself, he knows he’s only avoiding the real focal point of the room.

It can’t last long, lest the stench make him faint, and he draws his eyes down.

The corpse lies flat, cold and still, on the silk and cashmere sheets of a queen who ruined everything.

There are open gashes in his face from the places the insects creep and gorge themselves. Mold and decay pierce deep into the scar over his face, fanning out to reach the line on his jaw and the slopes of his nose. The junction of his lip is desecrated, torn open and eaten away by maggots that clearly don’t give a shit he’s spoken for.

And they wriggle and squirm embedded in his skin. Tunneling and devouring and making a meal of him. White little worms and six-legged creatures on stark contrast to the leathery skin. Blending into scraps of skull peeking through clumps of rotting flesh. Blood curdled sour in veins without a pump.

He smells like rancid meat. It’s an awful, biting scent that attacks and reminds Peter of the sheer length of time he’s gone alone. It infects the air, in the stomach, rank and debauched as it burns his eyes.

Vomit erupts in his throat; he shudders as he swallows it down. The disturbia in the images is not the worst of it.

He’s seen Felix sleeping, brows furrowed in a nightmare. Seen him blue in the face,  frozen solid. A few centuries ago, Peter had even stumbled upon him curled into a ball half his size. Gone white in fever; spending the whole night shuddering in pain. He’d gotten an infection after forgetting to clean a wound. Or because he’d been too busy making sure the other’s cleaned theirs (Peter can’t remember the specifics).

The point: he’s seen it all, from bad to worse.

But this?

He shoos the thoughts, the bile and vomit. Shakes away the burning in his every inch. Instead, he begins to remind himself that, after it’s done, he’ll be able to focus on more pressing matters. On challenges and games and wars and meddling witches and curses. But for now, he can’t get ahead of himself -- he has to prioritize.

And this has apexed on the list without a single question of revision. The past few weeks were full of mind-numbing loneliness. Composed of stalking up and down corridors as monkeys chattered and swooped through the air. It all reminded Peter what it feels like to be starved for company. To be without Felix.

He doesn’t need much. But in addition to now requiring food and drink,  companionship surpasses those necessities.

And now, staring at the rotting husk that was once pumping and vibrant with a boy he called Friend laid flat on the bed, it’s more than he wants to bare.

There’s too much swimming in his mind. He needs to relax. Remind himself of what’s important.

With a cough and a spell and Peter places his hand on a chunk of flesh that’s cold and turgid under his fingers. He mutters the incantation, and first the worms appear. Crawling out from under the skin, poking holes and sores as they attempt to flounder away. They spark into flame. Creatures alight like convulsing miniscule torches. All slowness gone, writhing fruitlessly on the body and the sheets. They disintegrate into ash and then into nothing at all.

As the decomposers flay,  rotting flesh stretches to accommodate and cover the skull. Skin pulls taut, and then the tissue appears between the bone and outmost layer. Colors fade and desaturate from the cadaver’s gore, first to blue and then to white.

The stench of festering intestines fades as bones fill in to further structure something resembling a body. Felix’s long ragged scar looks fresh enough to bleed, as though he’d just acquired it.  His lips are whole again, smooth and undisturbed.

In fact, now Felix looks just the same as he had leaning against the rim of the well. He’s all but wearing his confidential smile he always reserved for private moments.

There -- good as new.

Well, not exactly.

Yes, technically it’s Felix. It still doesn’t look like him though; there’s something missing.

All the romanticism Peter’s ever heard says death looks like sleep.

But Felix just looks dead. A hollow husk,  chalky and white -- empty.

For centuries, no matter what, even brushing elbows with death, Felix was mobile, tangible. Alight.

Now?

It’s all vacancy.

There’s nothing there - nobody’s home.

There’s unrest, a disconcerting feeling as Peter wonders if, by cleaning the body up, he made it worse.

Resurrection is a dangerous game. There’s a reason no scroll or tome spells out the secret.

And, not just that, but the sorcerers still hoard it. One would think, for their utter lack of ethics, they’d give it away. And yet, on the contrary, they keep the method tucked in their breasts and won’t tell a soul.

It isn’t a huge jump to imagine the repercussions. Although Peter doesn’t know what they are, they must be steep. Otherwise the mages would’ve capitalized.

Well, if not the price of the deed, it might be the process itself is so stupidly simple most people overlook it.

It’s somewhat funny. Or at least Peter thinks. The most desired and coveted magic, the magic people sell their souls for, die for, pay for in blood, is nothing more than surgery.

It’s fantastically dim-witted.

Peter doesn’t know much about this sort of magic, but enough to make the lacerations. The resurrection, he imagines, will be the easy part.  

It’s the aftermath that warrants pause.

After all, Felix might be unfortunate enough to remember his time in the Underworld. Peter isn’t sure he wants his companion filled with memories of the Styx, Erebus, Tartarus -- wherever he ended up. He doesn’t know enough about the Land of the Dead to deter Felix’s mind, and for a moment wishes he could remember his own penance.  

It probably won’t take too much time for Felix to jump over that, though. Peter remembers how bright Felix’s heart was.

Or, at least, he thinks so. But he knows if he mulls it over for more than a few seconds his temples will start to throb. So, he decides it’s better to believe Felix hadn’t had a titch of black marking his heart.

The rusted barbs and fanged harpies in Tartarus, therefore, shouldn’t have made his Lost One’s acquaintance. The winding dankness of the river and the lifeless fields of grey, while unpleasant, couldn’t have been damaging.

Peter can imagine what Felix will do upon his return. He’ll freeze, a deer on the wrong end of an arrow. Frightened in the change of pace in death to life.

But Felix has to accept this; Peter's life depends on it.

So Peter will talk Felix out of fear, and then he figures more pleasant emotions will come rolling in.

His fingers stim as he brings his hand up, heart pounding and the slightest tremor in his stomach. Magic travels to his nails.  Palms hot and muggy with static, he drowns in the swampy air around him, courtesy of this burden that weighs him down.

He may or may not be aware he’s not thinking clearly. Better stay optimistic, though, or this could be the death of him.

A jerk of the hand and he’s got a fist inside his own body. He pushes past the rubbery tissue of his lungs,  until he feels it in his hand. It’s pulsing altogether too quickly, a steady vibration against the pads of his fingertips.

He takes a breath and tightens his grip along his vibrating heart. His eyes seal tight, wrinkling his lids as he pulls and, in a blunt crescendo of pain, groans once. The noise sustains in the air for half a second before his mouth clamps shut. Everything is stagnant but the staccato tick-tick-ticking of a clock in the hall.

He’ll never admit it, but  it’s worse than the muffled sifting of dust into the cusp of an hourglass.

A dull ache climaxes to searing flames as he clutches at the heart. He rips through, jolting as the tiny mass pops through the surface and the pain turns into a black hole. He fills: a weighty nothingness floods and pools in the soles of his feet and the pit of his stomach.

Bile burns in his throat, and he twitches.

There’s a small half-grin toying at his lips, though, as he reminds himself Felix won’t be dead much longer.

He can’t force himself to look down at the body as he lifts his heart to eye level. He had dismal expectations to begin with, but he hadn’t been thought he’d see this pathetic black knot.

After all, he is endangering his own life to restore a friend to his prime. Risking everything for the thing he loves most. Shouldn’t that be worth, if nothing else, a streak of red or the faintest glimmer?

But, no.  His heart is small and black as pitch, dull; it barely looks as though it can sustain one life, much less two.

He never considered himself evil before and he has to say he disagrees. Ambition, self centrism and ferocity cannot immediately equate wickedness. He knows he likes to play a villain, but evil? But perhaps that’s a subject for another time.

There are more pressing affairs at hand.

He’s calculated. Careful as he twists the opposite chambers, muttering a spell that may or may not exist.  A razor sharp edge jolts down his body, raking him and stabbing between excitable ribs. He chomps down on his lip to keep silent.

The heart quakes,sobbing and pleading as it’s torn apart in his hands. Keep me whole, it says. I want to stay whole.

But, more to the point ---

It screams at him. Begging one word on loop.

_No no no no NO!_

And just like last time, Peter refuses to listen.

His vision sways and doubles, he nearly buckles as the force beats down his core down through his veins and the ends of his hair.

The pain is sharp and intense. It’s wrenching his spine into quasimodo curves. It’s twisting and curdling like venom thickening in his blood. Pain propelled to the emptiness by magic.

It blunts, ragged and coarse as he stares at the two halves of his heart, one in each hand. On accident, his fingers tighten, and he deflates in his diaphragm. Teeth gnash until he tastes blood. It’s as though a reaper’s slimy talons had locked tight onto a heart protesting and begging for selfishness.

He stills the knocking in his knees and sets his head up towards the ceiling. He has to get ahold of himself, because he believes  in a few moments he won’t be alone in the bed chamber.

Punching deep inside Peter returns one half of the heart to himself. As it crashes into his cage, the emptiness disintegrates into slop. It gurgles and bubbles deep in his gut. It’s torment.

He has to act before he can think, reevaluate, or do something stupid. Holding his breath, he counts to three and slaps the small black mass through Felix’s ribs.

The corpse lies there. Stiff. White. Cold. Peter thought the spell cleaned him of the bugs, but there’s something active and buzzing under his skin, something that isn’t Felix.

For a moment, Peter falters. He waits, can’t think, the pathetic half-heart barely risking a beat. Twitches and balls his fists. He’s willing Felix to live, willing to pick up where they left off, willing for the loneliness to abandon him.

There’s a gasp, loud and abrasive against the silk sheets and satin curtains.

“No!”

Felix springs up on the mattress, all but twelve feet in the air. A moment later and he’s shooting back and blinking away the last vestiges of a misty forest, a land without magic, a tragic twist of fate.

Despite the franticness in his friend’s first breaths, Peter can’t help but sense the victory. Felix is alive once more. He smells like Neverland’s jungle, like smoke from a campfire, like salty sea air, like life.

His face is still pale, but no longer ashen in hue. Peter figures he’ll gain ruddiness in moments.

But - wait - no, something’s wrong. Everything in Felix's face indicates he’s still screaming except for the noise. Or, that is, lack thereof.  He stares ahead without words, in complete and utter silence.

Peter doesn’t understand. He never pictured this. And he thought of everything - went through all the options. He saw anything but this. Anything but blank. Anything but the dangerous stoicism that was so Felix.

It renders him into such a similar state that he - Peter Pan - finds himself _apprehensive_ of all things. So, he begins with the one thing he knows he’ll always be able to mange: he speaks.

“Well. Welcome back to the land of the living. You look good, all things considered.”

But Felix doesn’t say anything. He blinks.

"I don't reckon an apology will be good enough." Peter does his best not to shuffle his feet, to veer towards optimism.

Despite all hope, Felix is bleary. Incohesive. His lips barely move. “You murdered me.”

He says it as though it’s an alien concept. Something he couldn’t have conceived even in the most nightmarish circumstances.

“Now, now, _murder_ is such an ugly word.” Peter tries to offer a crooked grin, but finds his face stiff.  

Felix frowns, pale and quivering from exhaustion as his legs swing over the side of the bed in trepidation. He’s solid ice, though. A miniscule flicker of life hidden inside, diffused under layers and layers of confusion and emptiness.

There’s a block in Peter’s throat, something catches. He presses his shoulders down, cocking a brow as he sinks into an armchair and crosses his ankles on the mattress beside Felix’s hip.  “Well? Haven't you got something to say?"

Felix tilts his head to the side, pausing. He’s quiet. Still. But just  for a moment.

And then another.  

And one more.

Peter thinks he’ll speak soon. Felix, however, shows no interest in rising to the occasion, folded over, lips stitched tight into a frown. His mind is racing, but this time Peter isn’t privy to the thoughts that swarm around in his greymatter.  Something rustles outside the window; a monkey chatters on a tower several meters above.

How long has it been? It feels like hours, days, years.  Felix takes in his surroundings with a critic’s eye and a tourist’s pace. His eyes flash in befuddlement at the crest in the tapestries on the wall.

Something spikes in Peter  and he can’t take the silence another moment. “I admit I made a mistake. Do I have to say it? You know I hate apologizing.."   

The look in Felix’s eyes is solid granite, and Peter can feel the world spin.

“I was hoping that’d help,” Peter mutters, wanting very much to keel over and vomit right now. Instead he straightens his shoulders. “Before you go holding grudges, try to remember I brought you back.”

The muscle in Felix cheek flexes before it falls slack. His brows furrow in a mannerism he’d picked up from Peter somewhere along the line.  “Why?”

“It was hardly an ideal situation, but I didn’t have many options at that point.” Peter purses his lips, popping them for emphasis. He looks down at the ground, the wall, anywhere but at Felix. “Doesn’t mean I wanted to lose you, though.”

“Lose me?” There’s force behind the consonants, a loud snap in his tenor, daggers in the sound.  “You ripped my heart out.”

Peter’s voice is weak, tired, but he’s grappling with his composure. “Nuance.”

Felix huffs, and it’s a dry unamused sound, similar to the noises he used to make in retaliation to the Boys fighting each other over rations or something equally stupid. His lips turn up - it’s haphazard and bitter, and tastes more and more like castor oil the longer Peter looks at him.

There’s heat welling in the empty crevices within him, he can feel it like lightning cracking in the sky, and his voice raises. “I suppose I was too busy meddling with dark and impossible magic to fantasize about our reunion, but for all my effort I think I deserve---”

Felix’s head snaps over to him.  His words are sharp, caustic. The hot light radiating in the hearth reflects deep in his eyes, flames igniting and climbing high. “You. Killed. Me.”

And Peter cannot bring himself to understand what’s going on inside him, but he knows he’s never felt like this before.

What’s left of the heart inside his chest is shards. Pathetic little strings beating altogether too fast at the same time they want to stop. It feels like dreamshade. It feels like his shadow his hanging limp half out of his body, enough to notice how it _burns_ when it’s not there. It’s pumping acid through his veins, and he’s dizzy, and it hurts him in ways he never thought anything could.

Inside Felix’s chest, the heart is angry and trying so hard to hate. It’s reaching out with talons, but not quite making it there. The effort and the inability to reach loathing makes his knees buckle.

Peter wants to return to the grave. It couldn’t have been worse than this.

Give him harpies, string him on a rack. Flay him alive. Pull his liver half outside his body and let rats gnaw the rest of it. Make him choke on his own blood and die a little every day. Anything. Anything’s better than this.

He’ll  retract everything.

Just make this stop.

Make. This. Stop.

There’s an incredible range of hurt and devastation competing for his attention. And out of all of them,  frustration, haphazardly put on anger, is the easiest response

And so, he gets angry. “Oh, do stop fixating.”

_“Fixating?”_

Peter’s palms have gone sweaty, but he’ll never admit he’s panicking.  “I brought you back!”

“But for what point and purpose? You’ve got a game or a plan, I’m not sure what -- but you’ve got something,”  The words spill out, seeping out, slow molasses, articulating punches and stabs. “And I’m not feeling up to it.”

Peter snaps in return, tossing his head. “You’re all up for nothing, I’ll have you know.”

“Really? Because this feels like the beginning of a doozy.”

“That’s in _sulting_.” Peter pretends his voice didn’t crack, but Felix notices, mouth opens. “Look, I’ve always said never to get yourself into a cage you can’t get out of. I found a way out. So if we could just--”

“Just what?” A scoff. “You want me to be flattered?”

Peter stops. His stomach trembles, his ribs feel like they’re bleeding. His eyes burn.

But he gnaws at his cheek and he can feel the soreness inside Felix’s chest. He’s unsure how to react, and so he clings to the faux anger, curling his lips into a sneer he can’t  feel. “Don’t start in with sonnets now.”

“A eulogy would be more appropriate.”

And Peter bares his teeth and darkens his tone just because, if he were to acknowledge any of the other attacks and pains, it’d make things worse. “We’re going in circles.”

Felix sighs. The last thing he remembers is Peter looking up at him, with a round face, and a voice that wasn’t his. He’d said the friendship that kept him alive would be the thing to kill him.

The odd thing is that Felix has known for years - decades even - he’d do anything and everything for Peter Pan. He’d maim and murder and, he always figured, even give his own life.

But Peter didn’t allow him to give. He took. And for some reason that means everything.

Felix remembers the way Pan had told him, they were to rule Storybrooke as the new Neverland together. Sentiment in his intonation. And, Felix has to wonder, if all those words were an attempt to change his own mind or to premeditate the kill.

Peter hadn’t even let him speak or protest.

Not that it mattered; caught in the moment, all Felix had managed to say was “No.”

He didn’t want to die for Peter, in the end, after all. He wanted to live. Is that so wrong?

Especially when Peter had the gall to smirk and bat his eyes while Felix’s whole world came crashing down.

He’d already lost his home twice. His brothers twice. And then, on the spur of a moment and in the curl of a fist, he lost his life and everything that ever mattered.

But Peter can’t treat him like a marionette, to be killed and revived on a whim, on a game.

He’s never treated him so frivolously before, at least not in Neverland. But here’s the thing: they’re not in Neverland anymore.

He needs to remember what Peter did to him. He killed him.

After six hundred years, after everything, he killed him.

Felix can’t afford to forget. Those six hundred years should’ve been removed and perverted the second his heart left his body. But they spitfire in color and he can still feel the jungle air. He can still feel Peter’s grin against his shoulder that one instance they’d laughed so hard they both fell to the ground.

The wood in Storybrooke, in contrast, is speckled grey. He can’t remember the feel of mist nipping his ankles. Can’t conjure up how it felt to have a hand in his chest and a metaphorical dagger in his spine.

But he can still feel the dent in his scalp from the time Peter tackled him out of a tree. Still remembers the way his voice croaked out a meaningless “May I help you?”

‘Murder’ ought to stack up to more than a six letter word. Ought to cancel the six hundred years of memories.

But it doesn’t.

Something aches in his chest, and up till now, he’s interpreted it as emptiness. But, as he’s shrouded  in a thought, there’s a recognizable thumping. It’s soft, muted, somewhere inside the cavity.

Felix stops, images of a candlelit séance and bloodspill dancing across his mind. “How...how did you do it? Bring me back?”

Peter twitches, nods and murmurs on an exhale. “All you needed was a heart.”

“You--”  Light flickers bright and then dim inside Felix’s skull. “You took someone’s heart for me?”

“No. That wouldn’t work.” Peter adjusts himself in the chair, legs leaving the ease of the bed to dig deep, deep into the ground. “It has to...” He fades, implications taunting him from the evening circling on repeat. “It’s got to belong to you. In a manner of speaking.

“But mine’s gone.”

Peter swallows, blanches. He admitting weakness and all but literally on his knees - and Felix has every reason to tell him to go straight back to hell. He’s in a cage and he can’t get away.

“Lucky for you, mine fits the bill.”

Felix coughs. There’s something in his eyes indicating confusion. He’s unwilling to consider those same implications that have driven Peter to pale. The statement cumulates with a small lilt, a muted sound Peter knows better than to place hope into. “You gave me your heart?”

“And what if I did?” Cocked brow and set mouth, Peter looks more ready for battle than anything else, and he wonders how on earth they got to this point. It occurs to him a moment later that it’s his fault. But he drives on to amend himself. “It’s only half, don’t get too sentimental about it.”

Felix doesn’t abandon scrutiny, doesn’t soften or sympathize. Instead, he gives a shaky breath and then “Why couldn’t you have just killed some poor bastard?”

It’s the last thing Peter expected and he starts. He traces the conversation over. The comment came out of nowhere with no precedent. He can’t make sense of it.

Felix’s cold glare speaks enough for him, but he doesn’t spare Peter the narration.

"It would've made it so much easier to hate you."

"And that's what you want?” Peter narrows his eyes, rooted to the spot with a dry throat and overwired nervous system. It’s as though he’s impaled straight through. “To hate me?"

“Honestly? Yes. More than anything.” Felix pauses, turning away. “But I don’t. I’m trying and I just can’t.”

“Stop trying then.”

It’s a stupid, childish request.

Peter doesn’t know what he’d been thinking. What he’d been expecting.

Was he naive enough to think anyone - even and especially Felix - would jump up and thank him? Wrap his arms around him and say _“I knew you wouldn’t let me rot?”_

Stupid, stupid, _stupid._

“Peter? Are you listening?”

“What?”

“Where are we?”

“Oh. Enchanted Forest. Regina’s kingdom--former kingdom, really.”

“What happened to the curse?”

Peter crosses his arms at his chest. “Must we get into the details?”

“Yes. I think you owe me that much.”

“Fine.” Peter flickers for a second, disappearing and then reappearing on the mattress beside his friend. He gestures to the pillows behind them. “Settle in; it’s gonna be a long night.”

And he tells Felix everything. He skims over the part where Rumplestiltskin killed him. Felix looks intrigued, but he’s kind enough not to ask for elaboration.

Peter admits he recalls nothing about his time in the Underworld. Admits the last thing he remembers after the dagger spliced his spine was waking up to a snowy wood. He remembers blinking as thick black slime flowed down his body.

He snapped his head up at the sound of Rumple’s voice, an incredulous whisper. It was the first time, in his befuddled stupor he noticed his surroundings. The forest, the clearing, Rumplestiltskin, the beautiful woman (Belle, he remembered) sobbing over a body.

“Bae!”

Rumple sounded gruff as he rushed forward. A moment’s more evaluation and Peter realized the Dark One was right. It _was_ Baelfire shivering on the ground.

Peter knows all too well what dying looks like, but as he reaches this point in the story, he lies down to forge an easement.

“If I were more myself at the time, I probably would’ve snuck off. Don’t think they noticed me.”

At the time, Peter stood rooted to the spot. Watched Rumplestiltskin cradle a hapless Lost One who was all grown up. Baelfire was pathetic: he looked more like a lost little kid than he had as a Lost Boy.

Peter was the first to notice the cloud of green smoke and believed himself invisible.

A tall woman with a dark green face appeared in the smoke, sauntering around like a cat. Peter curled his lips up, despite having no audience. He set about considering ways to both bring her down if he’d need to, or to forge an alliance.

“Poor Baelfire,” She said, “Couldn’t learn from his father’s mistakes. He wanted so badly to get back to his son.”

Rumple growled, and even Peter had to admit he sounded something fierce. “You did this! You tricked him!”

“All I did was pass on some vital information.” The green woman was grinning the whole time, but still rather calm. The thing that stuck out to Peter, then, was her lack of glee in the matter.

She was working to a higher motive. If this were her grand plan, she’d certainly be a bit more excited.

And he was stationary. Simply waiting for inclination to act as the woman indicated a rather demonic looking candelabra. And still waited as she continued the idle conversation.

Peter half listened, weighing options to get out of this. He knew he could walk away under the guise of invisibility. But, somehow, that felt tasteless.

Rumplestiltskin held Baelfire in his arms, brandishing his crooked dagger protectively against the dying man. It was pathetic; Peter thought it’d be kinder to just kill him then. But, then again, kindness wasn’t his strong suit; and philanthropy wasn’t the Dark One’s.

Rumple’s entire body stammered as the green woman’s eyes flared. It looked like there was some force trying to rip either the weapon or the man out of his grasp.

“Sorry Rumple,” The woman said. “You can’t hold onto both.”

There was a tug, a struggle. And then, Peter groaned.

Leave it to Rumple to make the worst decision possible.

The Dark One’s grip loosened on the hilt of his dagger, and it went flying through the air.

Without premeditation, Peter disintegrated. He appeared again, in full view, right in the cursed weapon’s pathway. He stopped it in midair, just before it hit his gut. An old parlor trick he learned after centuries of boredom.

“You!" Rumple spat, fury and fear all wrapped into one.

The green woman shrieked, full of anger.  Belle, a few paces away, looked whiter than the snow.

There was a pulse of magic, pressure building up in Peter’s veins. It took less than a second to realize the green woman – a Witch – was intending to harm him into dropping the weapon.

Peter transferred his eyes from Rumple and Baelfire over to the woman.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” He said, disappearing into thin air.

Coming back to the present, Peter sits up on his elbows. “I didn’t see the rest of it. But it didn’t end well for Rumple.”

“What happened to Baelfire?”

“I don’t know.” Peter pretends to find the shine in the sheets distracting.  “I spent the next few days in the forest, gauging this new magic. And tried to figure it all out.”

Peter chews the inside of his cheek. In those days in the wood he was more alone than he’d ever been before. He hates remembering how he’d turn around to share a spell or a victory and would meet the chattering of a squirrel. The horrible silence around his campfires. The emptiness in him, the fact everything became less important when done alone. When done without Felix.

Not that he’ll admit it.

“Desperate times, desperate measures.”

“And what happened next?”

Peter sighs, he hates long-winded explanations.  But the short version’s less painful. Although there was nothing short nor painless about those months of scouring over tomes and spellbooks. All the failed potions that exploded in his face, burnt him and left him tossing and turning for weeks.

He’d even marched up to the Queen of the Dead and tried to make a deal. “But it was spring by the time it occurred to me,” He explains. “And she was a right bitch about bothering her about the dead at the time. She threatened to me a tail as punishment for it, too.”

Felix stares at Peter, dumbfounded. This impossible boy, who was always so far beyond human need or desire, ripped his heart in half to revive a friend - to restore him. He experimented and got himself hurt in the process. He went directly to a goddess -- and cursed her name without remorse when she refused to help him.

The fact Peter will do anything to get what he wants isn’t anything new. Felix knows that just as well as he knows his own name.

The odd thing, however, is Peter accomplishing those feats to get him, one of at least thirty Lost Ones, to return to life. There had to have been another boy who Peter could’ve entranced or befriended -- so why did he do so much to get this one broken boy back? Especially after a cold-blooded kill.

It doesn’t add up.

Once Peter stops his tale, Felix is silent. He’s thinking hard, trying to draw his own conclusions. And though Peter Pan is many things, patient under stress isn’t one of them.

“I’ve been meddling enough with ways to bend the rules, I suppose a portal won’t be too much of a challenge,” Peter says, fiddling his hands. “It can’t be too difficult to get you to Camelot, if that’s what you want.”

“What? No.” Felix’s head snaps to attention, his tone somewhere between harsh and overwrought. “Why would I want to go there?”

“I’m not stupid enough to think you want to be here.” Peter covers with a hoarse cough and knits his arms together. “Or that you want anything to do with me. So I suggest you weigh your options.”

“I haven’t been there in...” Felix looks at his hands, as though he can count millennia on his fingers. “My family, if you could even call them family, they’re bound to be dead by now. Where would I go?”

“You can learn to be resourceful, I suppose. I’m sure there’s something sentimental in your skull about home or the like.”

Felix scoffs, dry and humorless. “Peter...you understand you’re _It,_ don’t you?”

“What?”

It’s an unnecessary question, and they both know it. Both aware that everything in Felix’s life, at this point, hinges upon Peter Pan. He abandoned the life he had, so long ago, in Camelot. Left his brothers without a single good-bye, all for the sound of a pipe. At the time, it seemed like the right decision.

He’d adjusted quick, made a new boy of himself in Neverland. There, he’d been a lieutenant, powerful in his own right, he had friends and brothers of his own making. Happier than he’d ever been. It was a second chance that stacked up to freedom. Amounted to the tantalizing degree of violence and friendship he’d always craved.

But then, in the end, it all crumbled. The Lost Ones betrayed the both of them. They ratted out Peter’s location, and left Felix to scream. They left him to kick and hiss at adults who stepped onto the island as though they owned the place. It wasn’t fair, Neverland wasn’t theirs.

As far as Felix could tell, they shouldn’t have had any power or influence over anything. Least of all over his friends. The most valuable thing to Felix, and it turns out there wasn’t a damn thing reciprocated in it.

In another situation, Felix might’ve started seething at the memory. Foaming in how eagerly they slipped into treachery. They were his brothers, who he’d hunted alongside, took care of, and spent centuries building up pillars of fraternity. But they left him without a passing glance. Deserted him and glowered in haughty derision as he foamed in a mad attempt to keep things the way they were. The way they were supposed to be.

They added insult to injury. Wrenched him away from Neverland on the Jolly Roger. Lifted him off the ground as though he were a toddler throwing a fit because he didn’t get dessert. He was a boy betrayed, clinging to the last fragments of the life he’d made for himself. Shoved him on the starboard side of the ship. Forgot about him.

Everything was gone.  

Now, revived, he faces the same situation. He’s in a realm he doesn’t know, a complete stranger to all but one. No power, no friends, no familiarity, no clue, nothing but Peter.

That's old news.

But the real thing that gives pause  is the striking realization that, in this situation, they’re matched. Felix is all Peter has too. Maybe he's all he ever had and he's just been too stupid to notice.

Felix chews on the side of his cheek. As though still in rigor mortis, he is stiff, and despite having a half-heart to pump his blood, is still far too vacant.

“You killed me, and it’s going to take a lot more than bombast to get me to forget. I don’t know if I can.”

Peter can’t identify which half of his heart is beating louder, which half is splitting.

Felix pauses, fiddles with his clothes, eager to have something to do with his hands. “We can’t go to the way it was - but maybe we can get close."

“The way it was isn’t good enough,” The words slide out before Peter realizes what he’s saying. A very different sort of boy might’ve clapped his hand over his mouth. As it is, he stops, abrupt, sucking on the aftertaste of his sentiments.

Felix’s eyes have abandoned the fire, have turned to Peter. It’s sparking, a reflection falling low. His shoulders have hunched, his neck retracts in towards the rest of his body.

“What did you mean when you said the heart had to belong to me in the first place?” Felix is chomping down on his lip, and he shifts in on the bed, whether or not he realizes.

For the first time, perhaps in forever, Peter’s jaw drops. He cranes nearer, glaring at Felix as he grabs his chin. Makes a conscious effort not to pay too much attention to his breath. Or his eyes, soul bared in them. His face, with all the memories wrapped up there. “What do you think it meant?"

Felix’s voice is low, scratching. "And you couldn't have told me?"

“Haven’t the past three centuries sufficed as a hint?”

Three hundred years of sharp kisses behind trees. Three hundred years of dirty wrestling and panting into each other’s necks and he couldn’t have guessed?

“No, not really.”

“I’ll be blunt next time.”

Something comes over Peter. He doesn’t know what it is, maybe it’s the proximity or the way his heart thunders. Maybe it’s stupidity. Maybe it’s the urge to shut Felix up.  But the next thing he knows, his grip on Felix’s chin moves to his jaw, and he’s smashing their lips together.

A strangled gurgle chokes up from Felix's throat, and he bolts away. Peter halts, trying to ignore the way Felix stares at him, wide-eyed and skittish, as though he just asked the kid to die all over again.

"You said--" Felix begins, broken sounds making a humming decrescendo as they slur in the air surrounding them. “In Storybrooke you _said_ \--”

"I know what I said," Peter snaps, the words rotating in his skull, stuck on a cyclone, a faux pas that shouldn't have meant so much.

_"Love doesn't just mean romance or family."_

_"It's friendship. Loyalty."_

_"Only one person's always believed in Pan."_

Friendship. Loyalty.

Doesn't just mean family or…

Or.

He shoves the sickeningly sweet thought away; it's damn near lachrymose, and he doesn't want it. Can't want it. Not with the way this is going.

But Felix is still gruff, uncertain and rough around all the edges.

And it’s beautiful and frustrating and hurts.

"I know what I said," Peter repeats, raising his gumption. He sighs, swallows the excess liquid soaking heavy on a tongue that feels too big for his mouth.

There’s something tugging at him, pulling his heartstrings like a needle and thread, crosshatching Felix’s name over and over again. He recognizes the tugging, wants to stomp it into the ground. The crux of the matter is he knows, at this point, it’s not possible.

In the silence, the sole indication Felix is breathing seems to be the way he has collapsed, a quick abrupt inhale held forever.

At least until he speaks: “And?”

Straightening his shoulders in determination, Peter tries his damnedest to reach nonchalance.

Back at the well, he didn’t lie. Love doesn’t just mean family or romance. It can be friendship. But he’d be damned all over again if Felix wasn’t all of it at once.

It always went unsaid before. In Neverland, when Peter pressed Felix into a tree, teasing him with his nails and lips - it wasn’t necessary to say or even acknowledge. Before, when they were forever young and immortal. When nothing needed to be analyzed because it could stay the way they wanted forever.  Keeping one’s brain in the push and pull and rotation of skin on skin and as far away from speeches and _thinking_ made it easy. It took away the complications.

But it looks like he’s saddled with complicated right now.

“I think I might’ve... _oversimplified_. A bit.”

Felix’s eyes constrict to a normal size. He’s more critical than Peter’s ever seen and it sets his teeth on edge.

“But you understand what it’s like,” Peter recovers shakily. “Child’s mind and all that. Besides. I didn’t even have my own heart. I admit having Henry’s mind might’ve made me a bit callous ."

It’s not quite audible, or perhaps it’s all in Peter’s head. Felix’s voice is veering away from anger and frustration, coming to rest at something lamentatious. “You’re still oversimplifying.”  

“Really?” And for once, Peter lacks all edge. “I think I’m making it complicated.”

For the first time, he realizes he’s tired. How late is it? How early? Even the monkeys have ceased their prattle. He wants to roll over and fall asleep, but he’s got to see this to the end.  

Felix’s eyes look silver in the way they glint.  Rare and valuable. Cold and metallic. His fingers shake, and he’s making an active effort not to raise them.

“Why couldn’t you just have brought me back and expected me to serve you and follow blind? Instead you tell me you’ve been through hell - all the shit you’ve done to get me, and then you’re willing to walk me to Camelot if I wanted to leave you. You’re being good. Why can’t you make this easy? You’re not being fair.”  

“Am I ever?”

And, much to Peter’s relief, Felix’s lips turn up, closed and tight, half real. “Good point.”

“What do you want to do, then?”

“To use your phrasing, I don’t have many options right now,” Felix ignores how Peter flinches at the statement. “I’m not going back to Camelot. I can’t make myself hate you. There’s one thing left.”

“Which is?”

Felix rubs the base of his neck, gnaws on his cheek. “We find a way to make this work.”

Peter can’t help it; he’s relieved.  

 

 

It took Peter longer than he cares to admit to notice there was something unique in his lieutenant - his best friend - Felix.

By the point the thought even occurred to Peter they’d already spent at least two lifetimes together. Shared countless pranks played on Lost Ones and on pixies. Hundreds of games forgotten in the mist and moors of the island. Dozens of nights lying on their backs in the cliffs, Peter creating vivid constellations and Felix naming them. They’d create legends together, just the two of them.

There were battles then, complex adventures and intense wars.. Bloodied up some mermaids, nymphs, rogue boys. Gotten into more scrapes than anyone else might have dreamt. They didn't mind; they were both made for the trouble.

Felix had wrapped bandages around Peter and all the other boys too often to say. And Peter had been returning the favor - healing him magically in secret - for perhaps a decade or more.

So Peter doesn’t know why it took him so long to want him like this. Doesn’t know if it took him a while to notice the heat in Felix’s eyes, or the way he’d become so eager to please. Doesn’t know if Felix just came round to the same revelation around the same time he did.

In the end, those are just technicalities, though. Aren’t they?

Perhaps he used to turn away from it on principle before the thoughts could make themselves known. Perhaps it’s something that grows once one becomes comfortable with another person. With their perfect company and unrelenting friendship.  He wasn’t sure, but, thankfully, it’s not point.

The point was that he woke up one morning and realized he wanted to know what Felix looked like with his legs up over his head.

And Peter realized this, allowed his thoughts and emotions to stew, and then put them away until the opportune moment.

And then?

Veni, vidi, vici.

It was, really, very simple.

He’d backed Felix against a cliff, trying not to laugh as the boy stirred and tried to figure out if this was for fun or serious.

Peter’s grin was all sharp teeth and congeniality. “You’ve been here about - what - a few hundred years now?”

Felix’s eyes narrowed. He could tell there was an air of gravity to the situation but nothing fatal. “Three, I think.”

Letting his hands move over the bony planes of Felix’s chest, Peter hummed. “If we recognized titles here, how many do you suppose you’d have?”

“I don’t understand.”

Peter smiled, amusement buzzing all around him. He used the slope of his smallest finger to draw abstract patterns, aware of the effect he had on the poor flushed boy pressed against a cliff. “You’ve got all sorts of titles by now. Lost Boy,” He punctuated each statement, steepling his fingers. “Brother. Friend. Soldier. Confidant. Aide-de-camp. Mine. The list goes on. Let’s add another, shall we?”

Felix spent a few moments trying to swallow but managed to say, “Which is?”

“Learn to read between the lines and you’ll find out.”

“All right.”

And then Peter had a hand jerking under Felix's belt and teeth scraping along his lip.

Felix would have drowned in his mouth had Peter not been there keeping him afloat.

It wasn’t long before hands shuffled under clothes. And only perhaps a few minutes before a near-timid, “What do you want to do?” and the easy flared response, “Everything. But we’ve got forever to do it. Might as well take our time.”

_Veni._

His lungs were failing him and in the most marvelous ways. He gasped and cried out in intense want, panting between words.

_Vidi._

Felix’s heartbeat chuttered like a hummingbird, pattered so fast it was hard to make out one beat from another. A constant vibrating hum.

And Peter kissed him hard.

_Vici._

 

 

Peter hasn’t yet experienced insomnia. But, he thinks begrudgingly, there’s a first time for everything.

Or at least he tells himself as he tosses and turns and rattles off excuse after excuse after excuse for why he can’t drift away.

The bed is too big. The sheets are too slippery. The pillows too plush. Someone snuck into the room and smashed his spine with a hammer. It lies in tangential fragments somewhere in the gaping hole inside him.

Something like that.

If he’d ever dabbled in tearing out his own shadow, he imagines this is how it’d feel.

And so he tosses and turns and cannot shut his eyes.

It’s been hours and it’s only getting worse. Building from mere unpleasantry to something far more unsavory..

Peter’s heart is racing, his lungs flood with what feels like mercury, burning and heavy. Every pore in his body sweats, soaked through and weeping. He doesn’t know why, but he twists on the sheets, gritting his teeth and tries to figure out why he’s so panicked.

The feeling climaxes at the same moment the silence breaks by a scream, high and frantic. His eyes adjust to the darkness just in time to watch Felix collapse off the windowsill and fall to the floor. Peter blinks, watches, a gobsmacked look on his face, panting and terrified. Felix spins and splutters on the ground. He presses against the wall, swatting at nothing.

And Peter doesn’t know what to do. Maybe in another life he would’ve, but the truth in the matter is that comfort is something he’s never learned.

Felix strains and curls in on himself and mutters frightened things under his breath.

Peter slinks off the mattress, but his knees fail him. He smacks on the ground, forehead throbbing from where he hits. Cornered, the world is black; can't breathe. He’s stuck in a hole deep, deep, deep in the ground and he can’t claw his way out.

And he cries and yells and gasps. And Felix, just across the way, shivers and yelps.

It’s the longest night of their lives. It’s as though years have waxed and waned by the time they finally grab ahold of their lungs and regulate their heartbeat.

“Peter?” Felix’s voice strains and his chest billows. “What the...hell..just...happened?”

“You had a nightmare.” It isn’t an answer, but nothing else jumps to mind.

Felix chews on his cheek, his tongue darts out to saturate his lips. He doesn’t speak, just glares.

“What was it?” Peter manages to rise up to his knees, lean against a wall and pretend not to shiver as freezing sweat evaporates off his skin.

“You were killing me,” Felix says, slow and wounded, recollecting the nightmare. “And laughing. You said I didn’t matter.”

“Why would I say something like that?” Peter extends his hand for a beat but then retreats when Felix fliches. “So despicably out of character.”

“It happened once before.”

“Con- _text,_ Felix,” Peter snaps, running his hand along the cracks in the slabs on the floor. “Look, don’t be an idiot. If you didn’t matter, do you honestly think I would’ve spent all that time finding you?”

Felix brings his lips together with so much pressure they turn white. “This isn’t working.”

“It was just a nightmare.” Peter says too quickly. He blinks and recovers with a rotation in his shoulders, looking out the window at the way the dawn’s breaking in a repeat of every morning. As though everything doesn’t depend on this boy splayed on the floor. “I don’t want you to go.”

“And if I do?”

“That’ll be your decision.” It would also destroy everything.  But still Felix's decision.

“If it isn't?”

A funny little breath, and Peter can find the words, but swallows them for the thousand ways they’re unwelcome. Felix’s eyes are narrow, though, and so he allows them to flow. “I suppose I’ll just have to find you all over again, won’t I?”

 

 

Felix meets the Witch early in his second week. He’s surprised when he and Peter walk into the dining hall to see the table stacked high. Gold-inlaid plates of meats dripping in sauces. Overfilled baskets of bread still steaming. Sweating porcelain bowls of broths and stews.  

The Witch is a tall woman, perhaps she might’ve been beautiful if not for the affronting verdigris in her skin. There’s something in the way she walks prompts Felix to veer on the side of caution.

Peter walks with his familiar ease, reclining in the chair, heels on the table, legs to the left of a plate of stuffed duck. He waves a hand and a chair skids out for the Witch.  Felix pulls the chair beside Peter, sitting down just as he’s muddling through introductions.

“So what’s this, then?” Peter gestures out to the table in front of them, sending a small flare in his fingers over the plates of food.

“Thought it’d get your attention,” The Witch tuts. “You do owe me something after all:"

Felix thinks he can feel a small palpitation beside him. It's hard to tell as Peter tossing his head so easily and spooning himself a generous helping of stew. "Let's not talk business over breakfast."

There’s nothing Felix can say throughout the meal. He doesn't know the witch, after all, doesn't know the politics of this strange new scenario.

He knows he ought to have more monumental worries, but there's something grating in the fact Felix has no clue what's going on. Peter told him everything; in Neverland, there wasn't a thing happening on the island and surrounding islands the both of them didn't know.

So imagine his surprise when Zelena and Peter begin to exchange words. Clipped, uneasy conversation for certain, but it's an exchange. Worry about the monkeys, about those who might stand in her way, and such things.

Felix has to admit he thinks the Witch needs to get a grip. When the conversation dipped into adversaries, she drew tight and started to stammer. While Felix watched with a small air of righteous indignation, Peter rolled his eyes but reminded her to breathe.

To say Felix doesn't like it would be an understatement. But he hardly feels warm enough to Peter to say anything suggesting possessiveness. Besides, Peter never much liked it when he behaved like that anyway.

So he counts the stones in the floor. He counts how many monkeys fly by out the window. Creates a parallel narrative in his mind of what might've happened had Pan cast the--

Felix aches in his belly. Peter spins to face him, a hand pressed to his own abdomen. Felix ducks behind a baguette and resumes his train of thought.

Cast the...

He can't even make himself think it, but there's no point in dwelling. Peter won't hurt him again, he has to remind himself. Not now, so soon after resurrection.

Breakfast comes and goes, and the food is rich and warm. Felix can't remember the last time he felt full.

He's nursing a glass of white wine when Peter stands, draws his hand as if pulling on an invisible string. A crooked dagger appears in his hand. It’s pulsing with such dangerous magic even Felix can feel it, hazily, through Peter’s palm.

The Witch looks hungry. Impaitent. Jealous.

Peter, though, still holds right to the hilt of Rumplestiltskin's dagger. He extends his hand a beat later. "Play nice."

The Witch goes to snatch it, though Peter still manages to keep the weapon away from her fingertips. "What do you care?"

"I don’t," Peter cracks his neck to try on nonchalance. "But good girls don't break their toys."

Felix doesn't know whether it stems from him or from some sort of extraterrestrial force. But he can't help it as he glowers and stalks away, making quick distance in his strides.

Peter's pivoted on the ball of his foot. He tosses the irreplaceable artifact into the witch's hand, and he's at Felix's heels in moments.

"What is it?" He groans. "What could I possibly have done now?"

But Felix just shakes his head, and no matter how long he wracks his brain, can’t find the words.

Peter can’t ignore the scathing look in Felix’s eyes much longer though. He ducks into the windowsill, arms poised across his chest, looking just as debonair as a seven-year-old. “You’re staring.”

“She has your son,” Felix leans against the cool stone wall of the corridor. He figures if Peter doesn’t have to be standing at attention, neither does he.  “Shouldn’t you feel something about that?”

“Of course I do,” Peter snaps. “I might not be cut out to be a father, but I don’t hate him.”

Felix blinks. “You bartered off control of him.”

“To get you back. I have my priorities.”

“But you do tend to,” Felix pauses, takes a deep breath. “Veer towards dramatics.”

Peter wrings a hand through his hair and sighs. “It’s complicated. I want him to be safe, or at least out of the line of fire. I just don’t want anything to do with it.”

“You’ve got a lot to do with it now.”

“Not for much longer.”

Felix pauses, leans away and adjusts his balance on his feet.  “I don’t understand.”

And Peter sighs and explains what he knows of Zelena’s plans. How she plans to infest the past for some convoluted revenge plot against the Evil Queen. Peter suspects she’s legitimate in her intensions. Time travel is against the laws of magic; but laws always crumble under the right amount of prodding.

He explains he figures it’s best to wait it out. Once the Witch succeeds, Rumple will go to his own life, and won’t end up here in the first place. They’ll be in Neverland with the Boys and won’t worry about any of the betrayal or defeat, since Regina won’t be around to play rescue-mission. He’s mid-sentence when he finally makes eye contact.  

Felix is wearing his Look of utter skepticism that’s always grating.

 _“What_?” Peter snaps for what feels like the umpteenth time.

“We have to stop her,” Felix speaks under such an air of severity, Peter forgets to ask why. But he clarifies on his own: “For your sake.”

Peter shakes his head in a way indicating confusion so he won’t have to admit it.

“You still need Henry.”

“I’m not living off Neverland’s magic anymore I thought I--”

“Not now. In the past. You’ll still need him in the past, won’t you?”

Peter cocks a brow and settles into the windowsill. He braces himself for the logic Felix carries around like an enormous sacked burden on an ass.

“The Queen, she’s his mother.”

Peter waves it away. “John and Michael will adopt him then.”

"It’s not because I doubt their parenting skills.”

And he continues his exposition,  outlines the upsetting ripple effect that Peter, apparently, had been too dense to notice.

Not that he used that wordage.

Perhaps it’s just because Peter doesn’t know the story and all its implications. Felix doesn’t blame him. He wouldn’t know himself if Henry hadn’t recited it around the fire one of the nights he felt like less of a brat and more like a Lost One. (The kid was quite good company on those nights; he excelled at keeping the more squirrelly boys entertained. To Felix, that was nothing short of a miracle.) Peter must’ve been elsewhere and didn’t hear the tale.

It didn’t take much thought for Felix to remember the details from one night of storytelling.

If the Witch succeeds in erasing the Evil Queen from history, Snow White will never have a stepmother who hates her so much. Therefore, she’ll never turn to banditry.

“So?” Peter interrupts this point in the story, but Felix shoots him down in a glare.

He explains how without Snow White becoming a bandit, she’ll never meet her True Love. And so, the Savior would never be born in the first place.

“Which, in turn,” Felix concludes. “Means neither will Henry.”

Well, shit.

Peter pauses, grits his teeth, and lets out a small noise. “And I suppose it’d be stupidly optimistic to assume another boy might work?”

Felix nods. “And, besides, you liked this one.”

“That I did,” Peter’s still musing for a moment. “Well then, nothing more to it. I suppose we’re sleeping with the enemy now.”

“The enemy being?”

Peter rolls his eyes, disappointed his eloquence flew over Felix’s head. “Snow White. The Evil Queen. Whatever the prince’s name is. Do try to keep up.”

“And you’ll think they’ll just let us in?” Felix blinks in disbelief.

“Oh, not right away.” Peter adjusts his shirt and bounces to his feet. “But give it some time. Bat our eyes. Smile real pretty. Suck a few cocks. They’ll come around.”

And Felix exhales long and exasperated. Peter's confidence was soothing, the fact he listened was elating. But, the problem swarming in Felix’s mind?  Peter Pan really doesn’t have the first clue in getting people to trust him again.

Does he?

 

 

Spring melts and blossoms to summer, the wind is hot and wet, giving no respite from the way the sun scorches everything in its breadth. For Peter and Felix, they’ve fallen into familiarity that’s routine by the end of summer.

It’s a quiet acceptance. Conversations are infrequent, but they’ve both noticed the emptiness whenever they’re apart. The way their stomachs are empty, their chests hollow out.  It’s easier to stand together.

And, per Felix’s suggestion, they make it work.

It’s not good enough, not yet.  It’s an unresolved rigid stalemate, but it’s a start.

And sometimes, it’s almost back to the way it was all those centuries ago. Almost comfortable. Almost forgiven.

But then something happens. Some sort of relapse, and they're standing in square one.

It’s a mockery of the past and if Peter wasn’t so reliant on Felix’s proximity, he might’ve told him to piss off by now. But as it is, Felix stands near. Always stoic and always lost in the realms of his own mind.

He walks as he had in Neverland, a pace beside Peter, but not offering the same support he had then. He’s a body, a hollow presence.  

Peter still wants him, nonetheless. He wants to come full circle, return to the way it was.

Felix still wakes up screaming most nights. No matter how Peter tries to calm him,  they both press against the headboard unable to breathe.

When they recover, Felix repeats the nightmare aloud. How Peter tore him apart again, over and over. The memory on loop, and it doesn’t fade after his heart is dust; it gets worse.

At least ‘till they’re awake and Peter’s half-heart aches and burns. He can relieve it by reaching out for his Lost One, but he knows Felix will swat him if he tries.  

And once he gets his breath, Felix will go off through a corridor on his own. He’ll ignore how the world spins and his stomach threatens to erupt vomit with every step. He works through anger as he relapses and wants to spit and foam and demand Peter set him free.

He doesn’t. He’s been too in love for too long and even though it hurts him, the last thing he wants is to leave.

It’d be impossible for anyone else, but Peter has ways of accomplishing the impossible.

Peter thinks he’s being amazingly unfair.

Because Felix decides to twist the knife and pour salt into the wound; insisting to stay beside him regardless. He stands close enough to touch but flinches when the attempt is made. Still _loving_ , but not enough to make it right. Taunting that Peter might be able to fill in the gaping holes inside him, but without the permission to do so.

Whenever Felix runs off or disappears, Peter feels it as an ache and rolling pang of seasickness. If he tries, he can pinpoint Felix’s location, but it does little to relieve the way the pain ricochets off his ribs and spine. And so he rolls into a ball on the bed. He presses a kerchief of heated smelling salts against his nose.  He waits it out until Felix feels friendly again.

But right now, Felix is taking his time in returning to friendliness. He’s walking, and not only through the corridors, but past the doors. Out into the world. And he keeps going. This is the farthest he’s ever gotten, and Peter's legs quake and bowl under every shuffled step. Felix can’t be running. Can he? No, that’s absurd.

It’s ridiculous to think he’s testing to see how far he can get until he falls over dead.

He just got back, he can’t be eager to play with fire again.

Can he?

Everything inside Peter tells him it'd be groveling to go to him. But it’s hard to think straight when your head’s split open.

And so he evaporates into thin air and reappears about a mile away, on the beach surrounding the castle.

As it turns out, Felix isn’t running. Or, if he is, he’s stopped for a breather.

He’s seated on a boulder facing the large expanse of water surrounding the castle. As the lake is still, so is Felix. Nothing ripples or churns. Nothing flows. Just calm.

Except for the drawl interrupting the stillness. “I always wonder if you’ll come.”

Peter can’t tell if he’s excited or upset over the matter. Thus, he places his attention to the way the pebbles sift in miniscule avalanches under his soles as he walks closer.

Felix looks awful. His face is seasick green but blanches to his normal color every time he pads forward. Behind the layer of stringy blond fringe, there’s beading sweat and pimpling gooseflesh. The closer Peter gets, the better he looks. And the better Peter himself feels. He feels, at least for the moment, as though he’s in a win-win situation.

“What’re you up to?” Peter asks, and it feels like white noise against a gull’s unappealing squawk from some unknown location.

Felix gives a vague gesture to the vicinity and flicks his gaze between Peter and the petrified shoreline.

“It’s like glass,” He says after a beat of silence. It’s a rather uncreative thing to say, he knows, but he’s not feeling particularly imaginative. Weakly, he adds, “‘s perfect.”

And to this Peter releases a bemused sigh. He shifts his stance and, feeling some greater foundation than sand under the balls of his feet, crouches down to uncover it. A smooth slab of sandstone, rounded about the edges and thin.

To use Felix’s vernacular: _‘s perfect_.

Mouth skewed half up, Peter returns to standing. His arm swings in a breezy underhanded fling. The stone skips three times before diving below the tense surface. The ripples are bigger than they ought to be, an extra slapping of magic guiding the water to slosh and churn. Small waves rock and lap up on the sand, coaxing something resembling a tide out of its slumber.

Felix’s head sinks to the side, a small easing motion more than a quirk or tick. A slow and patient, albeit unvoiced,  request for an explanation.  

“You know me,” Peter shrugs, flicking his wrist to summon another stone to graze against his palm. “Can’t let anything get too perfect.”

Felix’s shoulders straighten, and his movements are liquid and easy despite their delay. He’s trying to run through mud. “I get the feeling there’s an elephant in the room.”

“Not at all.” The words spill out brisk, and perhaps a titch too quick, but Peter doesn’t make those mistakes. The stone skips twice and then plummets out of sight, and Peter replaces it as he circles his wrist.

He moves to toss the stone, but reassess himself and instead moves his hand to Felix.

"No thanks.”

“Why not?” Peter can’t help but challenge him. The fresh air gives him an air of vitality, there’s something innocent and lighthearted in the activity and in the air around him. “Scared you won’t be able to beat me?”

Felix laughs on a breath and lifts himself to his feet. He only needs to take two steps to accept the offer, but he takes four. And when the stone slips between their hands, their palms meet for a quarter of an instant. It’s the first time they’ve had physical contact since Felix’s return. Peter curls his fist the second it’s free just to hoard the scrap of body heat and the temporary bolted fullness in his chest.

Felix's throw is forceful and artless, but it bounces thrice. His fragile grin fades when Peter retaliates with a stone flying its way across the water no less than seventeen times.

“You used magic.”

“Observant, aren’t you?” Peter flares his eyes and inflates his chest.  “Not that you’ll do anything about it.”

“On the contrary, I’ll simply assume you know you’ll never beat me without help.”

Peter’s shoulders sift with his grin, it’s small and toys at his lips, but his whole body lifts in response. Sauntering around his ankles, he walks backwards. He presses his palms out to prompt Felix to follow. “Let’s take a walk.”

They circle the beach at least twice, skipping rocks when the idea occurs to them, commenting on the banal. The weather, the sunshine, dragonflies whirring over the banks. Comparing and contrasting Neverland to this.

Peter’s never been a good timekeeper, and Felix has lost the skill over the years. If either of them had to guess, they’d say it was somewhere around suppertime. As it happens, they were nowhere near keen to return to the shitstained corridors of the monkey-infested castle. And so, they came to rest on the same boulder they’d started.

Summer days are long, and so the sun is still high in the sky when Peter conjures up a plate of roast capon and a flask of whiskey diluted in rosewater.

Felix nibbles on the meat with his front teeth, tentative to bring in his canines. He grabs the flask and takes a few long gulps the second he’s swallowed.

Peter raises a brow. “I thought you liked the taste.”

“It’s easier to swallow after a few drinks.” Felix mutters, keeping his voice bland as possible.  

“So I’ve heard before. But I have to say in a very different context.” Peter elects to not press the glaring double entendre any further. Judging by the way Felix snorts and looks at him in something resembling joviality, he just caught up.

Felix shakes his head, “You couldn’t let that one go, could you?”

“When have you known me to shirk an opportunity?”

Lifting a scrap of meat to his teeth a second time, Felix _finally_ offers his secret smile. Peter doesn’t hear the response. “Next to never.”

For a moment, they’re laughing; a shred of happiness broke through the fog of their reality.

But the next thing they know, they hear voices.

“Hang on, I think I saw somethin’.”

Peter releases a cloaking spell between them just in time to see the figures emerge from the ferns and bushes framing the beach.

There’s a boy, Peter notices, shuffling behind an immense furry bauble of a man.  The boy’s got deep tanned skin, black hair, traces of dimples, and a slight flicker of familiarity in him.

Reading his mind, Felix jumps to his feet, “Aaron.”

Peter has to squint to get a better look. Oh, so it is. He hasn’t seen the former Lost Boy without a hood in years; he was a titch paler, too, in the constant nighttime on the island.

…and Felix steps towards him, invisible to all but Peter, hands curled into fists.

“What’re you _doing_?” Peter hisses and swings forward.

It takes Felix a moment to realize he’s pulled backwards. It takes another to register the way his shoulder slams against the boulder. And one more to notice Pan’s magnet-hot hands stilling his shoulders and holding him still.

He glares. Says, “They betrayed us,” as though it’s obvious.

“They blabbed. Not quite the same thing.”

“No,” Felix tugs but Peter doesn’t budge. “They deliberately destroyed everything.”

And Peter shakes his head, rooted in firmness. “I don’t want you doing something stupid because you’re projecting--”

“You think I’m projecting?” Felix’s head hits the boulder behind him in surprise, and he hasn’t even had the chance to wince when he speaks again. “I should be able to strike him---he hurt me.”

“And yet you sit by and ‘make it work’ with me.” Peter grits. “So, tell me, what is that if not projection?”

“Don’t psychoanalyze me.”  

Peter might’ve had some sort of clever retort resting on his tongue, but Aaron and the furry rotund man have meandered close. The spell might’ve made them inaudible, but there’s something daunting in carrying on a private conversation in such close proximity to others.

Aaron grabs the flask and kicks the plate under the sand. “Well someone was here, John. One of ours, maybe?”

“Whoever it was, they’re not here anymore.”

“But I heard somebody,” Aaron insists, pulling the cork of the flask and sniffing its contents. “Transportation potion?”

Felix’s mind hums in too much anger to hear. Peter finds the suggestion clever and makes a note to remember it sometime in the future.

The man - John - takes the flask and inhales the fumes. He shakes his head.. “Smells like whiskey to me. Must be nothing. Let’s head back. We must’ve heard birds or something.”

They pocket the flask, leave the half eaten plate of rooster full of sand, and have just dipped to the shade when Peter turns to Felix.

“Tell you what, you can give any and all the Boys their deserved comeuppance. But you can’t be an idiot about it. And you can’t be projecting.”

Felix squirms on the sand and Peter releases him, lifts the spell concealing them. It’s now  they’re aware of the red sunlight scathing against their faces.

“You went and found me.” Felix’s voice is gravelly, soft. Peter notices he’s locked his knees. “Even after what you did, you wanted me. You came here today - you still want me. Hell if I know why, but you make an effort."

He clicks his tongue for a moment and then gestures to the scrap of forest where the former Lost Boy disappeared. “He squealed. Hid behind a Savior, and wouldn’t even _look_ at me on Hook’s ship. None of them would.”

Peter’s having a hard time swallowing and turns his head a beat to hide the sun’s glare. He’s pretending the sun is the reason his chest feels peppery.

“So don’t compete for the worst betrayal.”  Felix’s eyes flick down to the ground and then up to meet Peter’s and bore straight through. “You won’t win that one.”

Peter’s face contorts into an odd half-smirk half-smile. If it were a concept known to the likes of Peter Pan, Felix might’ve thought his tone _bewildered._ “How sickeningly romantic of you.”

“Don’t push it.”

 

On Neverland, it never snowed. Or, if a fairy decided they wanted it, it was localized and extremely easy to avoid.

But, here, autumn moved by at breakneck speed, and before they knew it, leaving the castle entailed wading through ice and snow, up to their knees or higher.

With the inability to walk freely without fear of frostbite, the nightmares return, every night, sometimes twice. They shiver and dive under blankets. For the season, they share the bed for warmth, though it does little to soothe the tortuous images behind Felix’s mind or the way the sweat crystallizes while still on Peter’s forehead.

Once their heartbeat takes up a rhythm once again, Peter turns to Felix on the pillows. “We need to find a way to control that.”

“I’m doing the best I can.”

“It was getting better for a while,” Peter shakes his head, adjusting the blanket.

They’re interrupted by a  clanging, sudden and abrupt, and the doors swing open. Peter mutters something unheard before sliding off the mattress. He’s slipping on slap-dashed neutrality and turning to the Witch as she enters the chamber.

“Well,” She says, voice high,, “Am I interrupting something?”

Felix glowers and sits up. .  

Peter stands, feet apart, brow arched. “What do you want, Zelena?”

And the Witch laughs, raising her nose to the sky. “Oh, you're more uppity than normal. Don’t get so defensive. I’ll leave you to…” She flits her hand in the air, “Whatever. But first I’ve come bearing gifts.”

A small cluster of black smoke appears as she waves her hands.  Peter finds himself turning a miniscule cordial in his palm.

Zelena saunters around the room, checking the fireplace for dust, running her nails along the threading of the draperies. “We have a predicament on our hands. There’s going to be another curse.”

Peter can feel Felix stiffen at the word, and bites his tongue to keep from taking in the residual effects.

“Same one as always, of course. Quite unimaginative, but what do you expect?” Zelena saunters about happily. “So I had to make things interesting.”

Felix steps in closer. “How do you mean?”

“They’ll all lose their memories if they cast it -- and they will.” She sighs. “And you would too, but I am feeling generous today.”

“Why?” Peter's hands flex on his hip.

“I’d rather not burn bridges with you.”

Felix’s voice breaks through the tete-a-tete, uninterested and deadpan in tone. “Our memories?”

"You’ll keep them. But after that I’m afraid I can’t be any help to you.”

“Were you ever?” Peter mumbles, careful to add playfulness to his tone so as not to stomp on her fragile esteem and wind up even worse off.

She glares. “They’ll recognize you. They won’t know who I am, be best for both of us if we aren’t affiliated with one another.”

Peter cocks his brow, slipping the vial into his hand and stroking it with his thumb. “So you’ll just throw us to the dogs?”

“Unless you want a cloaking charm added to it--”

“If we don’t drink this,” Felix’s gaze fastens on the floor, busy, locked in his own thoughts. “We won’t remember anything?”

“Nothing from this year.”

“Will it take away my year, though? Or the calendar?” Felix’s eyes dart around the room in thought. “I’ve been dead for most of this. If it’s my year...I’ll forget Storybrooke too.”

The Witch’s lips drop ajar as she considers.

“Maybe I should risk it.” Felix mutters, more to himself than to anyone else.

Peter overhears, clear as day, spinning around to face his friend. Every muscle in his body tenses. “What the fuck do you mean by that?”

“Don’t you think _this_ ,” He offers a tiny gesture between them. “Is more trouble than it’s worth? We’re stuck together, so won’t it be easier if I just forget?”

“No.” Peter brings his feet a little farther apart for confidence. “Hellish as our current situation is, I’d rather have you come around to forgive me - or not -  with full capacity of your mind than have you forget and start to trail after me again like everything’s fine. That’s not going to cut it, Felix.”

Felix looks down into his hands as he gathers his words before flicking upwards to meet Peter’s. “I don’t know if I agree.”

 

 

The clock strikes three one winter morning as Peter awakens  with a groggy shiver. He groans to the familiar wave of nausea accompanying Felix’s absence.  He sits up, startled by the trace of underscored warmth sweeping through his gut. There’s a thrumming down, somewhere in the core of his…

Jolting up in bed, the moonlight leaking in the gap in the curtains shows Felix is neither sleeping in the windowsill nor sobbing on the floor. It can be expected, judging by the sickness, but he feels feverish in a way that doesn’t come with separation between walls.

He seeks out a ray of magic to locate Felix in the next bedchamber over. Felix would be using if it were at all comfortable to be apart. Why on earth is he in the next room over, at three in the morning, with such a high pulse and--

Oh.

Now Peter's pictured it, he’s having a difficult time stopping the visual.

It’s one he’s seen before, on muggy summer nights, when he’d push Felix into a pile of vines or torn hammocks and whisper, _“Show me_.” When he’d make sharp grins at the unique rhythms Felix took. When he’d take the taste of the sweat gathering on his neck. And remembering all the chirrups and moans he’d try to hide.

And it’s happening, right now, on the other side of the wall.

Fuck.

Peter hitches when there’s the same not-quite-there pressure.  Alight, a silhouette’s tickle. It’s building up under his skin, deep in his core.

He can’t feel the inflictions, but the effects are clear and pulse through his body. Intense pressure, bottled up in the centuries, under his stomach, between his legs.  

“Shit,” He mutters and tries to focus elsewhere, to close the accidental voyeurism. Telling himself not to allow his imagination get the best of him.

But his blood rushes to his face and down through his stomach - both focal points staking claim on him.

And he’s trying to push it away and turn it off. Not right now. Not while everything is still so fragile.

It feels really fucking good.

Peter’s worked up, without reason, and trying not to shiver or groan.

He bites his tongue and clenches his fist, seals his eyes tight. Which proves to be a bad decision, because now there’s nothing to stop the imagery firing in his mind.

It respires and it’s vibrant. He’s got a fever, and it’s getting hotter after every shockwave rippling up his spine.

No one can know about this. Ever.

But, the thought occurs to Peter,  if he’s feeling the results of what Felix is doing, the effect should be transitive.

Transitive, so Felix knows what’s happening. And he isn’t stopping.

If Peter wasn’t already beside himself, that final thought would have sent him toppling over. If he can’t ignore the sensation, he figures he can ignore his thoughts.

So he tells himself to think of nothing. Go through the motions and refuse to think, refuse to believe this is happening.

There’s no control. Peter can’t remember the last time he didn’t have any control and before he knows what he’s doing, he warbles.  He bites hard into his cheek and flings a pillow between his legs and rides out the feeling. One fist balled up on the downy material and the other pumping underneath.

He tastes blood. He’s boiling and burning from the inside out, aching and sore and unused to the erratic clouds looming over him.

He arcs, folds over on himself, and it feels like he’s falling.

Falling and spinning and turning around him. Building up and unraveling and shooting a brisk “Ahhhh,” he falls limp on the sheets. All he can focus on is the ragged pricks of adrenaline and rubbery limbs. Caught up in the frenzy of his own lungs until the door creaks open and slams instantaneously.

Scrambling up onto his elbows, Peter shakes his to shoo bleariness and hopes he’s imagining the look on Felix’s face: two parts furious, one part confused.

“What the hell did you do?”

Peter's panting, doesn't mean to snap. “Can’t you fill in that blank yourself?”

“Peter.” Felix cuts through the air. “Don’t play around.”

“I’m not.” Peter sighs, adjusting so he can’t feel the sweat cooling on the base of his neck. “Seems we’ve got some extra connection I hadn’t anticipated. But I don’t know anything about it.”

“You know everything.”

“Not this.”  Peter sits up, abrupt and brilliant. “I think we’d better make an effort to find out and avoid awkward situations. I might not, but I think I know someone who might have an idea or two.”

He raises his hand, and on the name of a spell, a sparking magic fog surrounds them.

As the haze dissipates, Peter blinks to find himself in a narrow room with high ceilings and stone walls. It’s quite drearier than he expected, but then again, she never met expectations.

After a quick look behind himself to be certain Felix was there, he turns to the center of the room. “I know it’s rude to drop by at someone’s home unannounced.” He speaks more to the pair of wings in front of him than to the incredulous face staring at him through the mirror on the vanity table. “But you were never one for manners anyhow.”

The Blue Fairy’s jaw falls slack for a moment before she knits her prim lips together, she pivots on her stool. “You were killed.”

“I could say the same about you,” Peter - at this moment composed of nothing else but Pan -  shrugs. “But I’m not here to share secrets from beyond the grave. I need you to explain something for us.”

The fairy sits straighter,  putting on an arc  to her brows. “I could never help someone with such dark--”

“Are you joking, Blue? You and I both know you’ve got more black fairy dust in here than you know what to do with.”

The fairy’s wings quiver, thinly covering her anger disguised to look like hurt or concern, and she reaches up to tuck a curl into her tresses. “And why should I help you?”

“My shadow may be gone, love, but the things he told me about you aren’t.” Peter takes a few steps forward to assert himself. “And I’m nowhere above blackmail.”

“Just information?”

“Of course. Wouldn’t want to compromise your...” Peter fades, gesturing circles in the air as he pretends to search for words. “ _Reputation_. Or whatever it is you’ve got.”

She stands up, nose pointed at the ceiling. “What do you wish?”

“We’re,” Peter turns to face Felix, who’s standing off his shoulder, fallen into a place he’d grown so accustomed to he used to take it for granted. “Having some difficulties.”

“I should say so, you ripped his heart out to start a curse.”

Peter’s stomach clenches at the word, he can feel Felix’s breath stop and all he can do is turn around and watch his Boy stitch himself together. Peter doesn’t speak again until Felix is peering out once again under his hood. When he shifts  to the fairy, her lips are pursed in something that looks a hell of a lot like curiosity.

“That’s not it,” Peter redirects the conversation. He explains as briefly as possible, how the ache sets in if they’re on the opposite end of the same room, how they’re in pain if they’re between separate walls, how physical contact seems to be the sole thing capable of filling in the negative space. “And, if there’s any sort of intense...feeling...we share it.”

The fairy pauses. “I’d rather not know the specifics of your evil methods, but I’m afraid I must. How did you raise him?”

“I know what you’re thinking, but it’s actually rather stupidly simple.” To the fairy’s dry expression, he scoffs but finishes, “I ripped my heart in two and gave him half.”

Felix thinks he hears the fairy gasp.

“My, this is a surprise,” The fairy’s lips quirk into some unintelligible shape. “I haven’t heard of such feral magic in a long time.”

“Can you tell me anything about it or not?”

“What you did,” The fairy begins, “is incredibly complex and ancient magic.”

“It was surgery!” Peter snaps. “Drop the theatrics.”

The Blue Fairy steps around herself, brown curls bouncing in the momentum. “Sharing a heart is the most concrete, binding, and profound form of True Love magic that exists. To love someone enough that you can sustain them - raise them from the dead...it takes an incredible bond. And it came from you.”

Peter doesn’t know if its himself or Felix who’s overcome by the urge to vomit. He doesn’t know which one  of them is nearing cardiac arrest. Can’t identify a single thing in the eye of the storm raging in his ribcage.

He knew there had to be love for the exchange of hearts to work. Perhaps he was even aware, underneath it all, it had to be the person he loves most, just like the curse.  All the information ever told him was that the heart still had to belong to the person.  Love was supposed to be a component, not the driving force.

Or, perhaps, all the resources had been explicit in the matter and he was too distraught to realize.

Love, on its own, isn't an intimidating force. Peter's known for centuries he loves Felix. And, on the rare occasion the distinction is necessary, he'll even admit he's in love with Felix without hesitation.

No harm in it. Love is impossible to avoid, even in a place like Neverland. There's no reason to allow it to work against you when it's just as easy to embrace it and use it as motivation.

True Love, however, is a much more malevolent and untamed beast. He’d always rejected the concept on sight due to a distaste for masochism.  

And so, he lifts his brow. “True Love? Don’t you think that’s a little sweet?”

“Yet he’s alive.”

Peter opens his mouth to retort, but Felix speaks quicker. “Is there a way to stop it?”

Jaw dropping, Peter snaps his towards his Lost One. This time, he knows whose lungs are ripped apart, whose stomach is rejecting any food he’d eaten in the past millennium, whose half heart is breaking all over again. When he speaks, it sounds far too quiet. “Felix?”

“I meant the connection.”

The fairy’s wings flutter.  “Short of him reclaiming the half he gave to you, no. Once you settle whatever qualm you’re having -- once the heart you’re sharing feels at peace, you’ll be able to function well enough apart. Perhaps even in different worlds, though I doubt you’d want to."

Peter hasn’t ripped away from Felix, who refuses to look over to him. There’s magic, staticy on his palm, but he doesn’t know what he wants to do with it.

“I’m bound to him?” Felix is frowning, and Peter can feel all the anger and resentment burning white-hot, taking precedent over everything else. He’s drowning in it.

“An odd way to phrase it,” The fairy says. “True Love magic works both ways. You wouldn’t be alive if you don’t love him as much as he loves you.”

“Answer my question.”

The fairy sighs. “Yes. As long as you possess the same heart, you belong to each other.”

Peter can feel the fury inside Felix, and the way it’s making sparks erupt from his fingertips. He isn’t sure if he casts the spell, or if it was the fairy herself sensing things were about to explode. The next thing he knows, they’re in the Witch’s castle once more.

Felix speaks before their chamber materializes, “You knew. Didn’t you?”

“Knew what?” Peter doesn’t intend to snap, but the secondhand anger is seeping into his chest and he can’t help himself.

“That I don’t have a choice!” Felix becomes a different person when he yells. Peter’s never had it directed at him before.  “I’m stuck here.”

“I told you you could go to Camelot!” The fog has gone and they’re all but circling each other. “You didn’t want to.  I didn’t know anything about this.”

“There is not a single thing you could say to make me believe you.” His words are broken glass, sharp and dangerous, but still fragmented and broken, too ready to shatter again.

“And that’s my fault?” He’s never been blamed for anything before, at least not like this, and his voice absolutely does not crack.

“Yes.” Felix responded far too quick for Peter’s tastes, and he still isn’t finished. “Everything. Even after you threw me out like trash, I’m supposed to toe the fucking line? I’m supposed to believe this is some capital-letters, turn the world on its head True Love? ”

“You’re over analyzing.” Peter’s teeth press together. “And you’re being too cautious. As always.”

“No. Not always. I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“I said you could go!”

Felix’s mouth snaps shut. There’s an odd quirk and a lilt in his brow. It reminds Peter so much of looking into a mirror that he’s already bracing himself for impact. “Don’t lie to me, Peter."

“You know how much I hate it when you assume the worst of me.”

“Your ego will survive.” His voice is low, the shadows cast across his face make him appear so much older and so much more intimidating. It’s like he’s a stranger. “From the second you killed me, to the day you revived me, to the decision to stay, I haven’t had a choice in anything. Have I? I've just been playing your game."

“I can find a way around it. There’s got to be some loophole, something between the lines. A spell, a potion, something. Give me a little time and I’ll find a way and you can walk away and never return.”

“That isn’t what I want.”

Peter’s seething as he pauses, fury forks his tongue when he goes to wet his lips. “Then what do you want? You’re sending me mixed signals. You want to stay; you want to leave. But when I say I’ll figure something out you look at me like I just asked you to rip your head off.”

“When I’m with you, I want to be here because it’s my decision. Not because of some magical tether. Not because your shadow dropped me off on your island. I want to be here because I hate the idea of living without you-”

“Sonnets, Felix.”

“Be quiet and let me finish.”

Felix continues to rave in how he doesn’t want to stay to pay the debt for Peter lifting him from the dead. In the same respect, he doesn’t want to leave because Peter put him there in the first place. He rants and he raves and he paces. Ultimately, it finishes: “And definitely not because some fairy says this is True Love and therefore obligated to ride into the fucking sunset or something.”

“Take it, then.” It’s a dare without pretense, a challenge without sport.

Felix steps away. “What?”

“Reach into my chest,” Peter’s grinding his teeth, needs his jaw to ache, something needs to hurt more than this. He shades his tone in red, if nothing else, he gets to be angrier. “Take out what’s left, and make yourself whole.  I won’t stop you.”

Felix allows a growl to seep up inside his throat. “Fuck off.”

And, in all the centuries, it’s the first time Felix has denounced him to his face. Peter doesn’t know how to take it, has never had to take this before, not from Felix’s tongue.

Peter won’t argue. He knows he isn’t the type to experience something as Good as True Love. It’s the sort of thing reserved for the likes of Snow White and others with something resembling a clear conscience. He doesn’t like to think in terms like this.

Because True Love is something in black and white and Peter Pan lives in a world of color. Felix lives in shades of grey. They should be free to be what they are away from rules and standards and the far too lovely implications of True Love. It shouldn’t apply to them.

But, if the fact they’re both alive is any indication,  no matter what they say, it does. It might just be a lot more complex than storybooks and fairytales make it seem.

Truth be told, Peter doesn’t like the way the label stripped his autonomy from the matter either.

No more words can help. No more actions. Nothing will work.

For the first time, they’re out of options.  

They sense their pulse quivering like a rabbit, Felix’s temperature breaking into sweat, blood pressure condensed and rocketing up, up, up. When his eyes open, they’re shaking. “What the hell kind of True Love is this anyway?”

Peter cannot - will not - _refuses_ to match his gaze. His voice is quiet, and he doesn’t close his mouth once. “Whatever it is, we’re fucked.”

Peter’s holding everything back, surviving off the residual push and pull inside Felix’s chest. It’s all he needs; his own lungs don’t suffice, but Felix’s work best.

But Felix is reviewing his speech he’s rehearsed in his mind a thousand times over. The last thing he needs before he knows he’ll be willing to forgive him. And he needs to learn to trust Peter again. End of story.

It’s impossible to love someone if you don’t trust them. Nevermind whatever True Love magic bullshit affects him. He knows that with or without the tether, he doesn’t want to stop loving Peter.

He’s had a lot of time to think in the past months.  He’d thought about how Peter’s tried and strived to get him back -- and the shock that he matters to him at all still resonates in Felix. The centuries of infatuation have returned, and Peter’s reluctant willingness to grant Felix permission to flee for Camelot….nevermind it wasn't an option...

Pan cares, he always has, but Felix never realized he degree to which he cares for him.

It’s not all better, and Felix reminds himself over and over again. He ought to hold a grudge. He ought to hate Peter.

But he wants to hold him close and taste his skin, act on impulses he’s had longer than he can remember. He’s loved him for too long to stop now. And it’s just occurring to him Peter loves him in the same way.

He should hate the fact Peter Pan is all he has. He ought to hate how without any of the other Lost Ones, without Neverland, the identity he made for himself there has dissipated.  The identity inflicted upon him in Camelot has been shunned too long to revert.

Right now all he cares about is convincing himself he can forgive Peter.

And so, he speaks: “If you ever walk into something with the intention of hurting me, ever again, tell me. And then let me choose if I wanna run in the opposite direction.”

Peter’s in shock. The second he heard the beginning of the statement, he assumed there would be a vow of perseverance, of avoiding all grief or pain that he might spur in the future. But it seems as though his friend has dropped idealism in favor of realism. There’s something tragic in it.

He doubts he’ll walk into something that would cause him to strike Felix ever again. Loneliness is hellish all on its own, and now that they share a heart, the idea sounds like suicide. It was close enough the first time.

Felix frowns. “I want your word.”

“You have it.”

He isn't expecting it, but the next sound he hears is identical to "Good," and starting now, he's gone.

Or, well, he has to be. Because all of a sudden, Felix has stepped forward and they collide.

Felix feels bigger than he actually is, larger than life, grasping Peter through his bones as though he isn’t quite alive anymore. Maybe he’s still dead and all this is doing is luring him in past the point of no return so the harpies can rip it away.

But, right now, Felix is warm and has a hand threaded through Peter’s hair. The other curves down his spine, trailing from the jut of his hip up to the slope of his shoulders. The kisses are short, loud, demanding. Six hundred years in the making, and they’re still parched. They bounce off one another to spring right down into the next, not taking enough time to separate.

He bites on Felix’s bottom lip with his canines, shaping the contour with the edge of his tongue. He scutters further into the room, dragging the boy behind him. One hand still rotating as Felix mutters, “You’re impossible.”

Peter nods, ringing ears deafening him to the statement, and then opens the action. Biting, perhaps to serve a point, or perhaps to feel the way it thrums in Felix’s chest, a bolt of electricity he can sense. He grabs at Felix’s collar, haphazard meandering into the center of the room. They collapse onto the mattress, sliding on the silk sheets.  

For a few brief moments, they’re made of teeth, biting and tearing at one another, leaving marks and scrapes behind. Peter’s swung his leg up and over and isn’t sure how he ended up with both knees on either side of Felix’s hips. How he’s here with two arms coiled around him like a constrictor, holding him close. His head tips down as Felix’s points to the ceiling.

Peter smirks, changes the theme as he licks up Felix’s tongue in one long charged swipe. Electricity pumping down his spine as he rocks in. Nerve endings overwired, he shivers at the messy contact. He pumps forward again in an aftershock at the chirruping noise Felix makes, just for the thrill of it.

“Peter?” It comes out as more of a gasp, the second syllable swallowed down into the other’s throat.

The noise muffles between two mouths, vibrating on the hot puff of air they’re sharing. "Hmm?"

“What’s happening?”

Peter steps off, scoots as far away on his knees as possible as Felix’s hands are keeping him close.  He raises  his brow. “I’ll let you decide.”

Felix is slow, deliberate. Over-enunciating. “We’re. Not. Okay.”

Peter moves to climb off Felix’s hips and call it a night. He’s ignoring the way the blood gushes from what’s left of his heart, but finds Felix hasn’t loosened the grip on his waist.

And now there are lips on his neck. Peter’s just as perplexed as anything even as he arcs into it. Felix nips at the column, sucking his neck as though he needs to swallow it, and Peter shuts up on a primeval reflex.

Felix tosses, suppresses a mewl as he nips at Peter’s throat.

He’s right on top of him and vibrant and pulsing and hissing away moans and starting to fray at the edges just for him.

Unsure what to think of it,  he can figure it out later. Right now he hurts deep under his ribs, far worse than when a hand flew and ripped his heart out. It’s a slow ache and one he wants to be rid of. Somehow, the closer he holds Peter, the more the pain evaporates.

He’ll think of the consequences later.

They part. Felix doesn’t remember abandoning Peter’s neck in favor of tongue. But their mouths are swollen and numb, heat building in between Felix’s legs, and the way Peter relaxes there.

“So,” Peter says - mumbles - carding through Felix’s hair,  a lisp in his words from the way his lips have swelled. “Your decision?”

Felix thinks he made his centuries ago, and if death changed his answer, Peter's changed it again. He swallows, giving an immeasurable little nod. “Are you sure?”

“Are you?” Peter hates having to wait for an answer, wishes he could learn how to read minds and take asking out of the equation. He feels as though he’s starving to death, growing thinner and thinner every moment he waits.

“I asked you first.”

Peter smiles, wrinkles his nose. And, for now, it feels light and airy, like all those countless nights around the fire, playing keep-away with a worthless trinket. “Technically I did.”

“So, is that a yes?” Felix twitches all over, hands meandering to more purposeful destinations.

“Don’t be obvious.” Peter presses in, hovers close until he can feel the heat and the all but taste his air. His grin snaps, turning impish.

Hands on Felix’s chest, he shoves. Palms white hot and rough in their need. Felix falls against the pillows, grinding a small sigh, blackness in his eyes growing as he stretches flat.  

Peter’s sitting up to his full height, and it’s odd for Felix to have to look up to make eye contact. But Peter’s built up enough nerve, remembered his trademark confidence. At least enough to start up a slow grind. He’s jerking down and pushing Felix further into the mattress with his hips.

"Can you forget about being a soldier, Felix, hm? Can you show me what it means that you're alive?" Peter's stringy sentences sound more weak than they have in previous nights, but it's not the time to compare and contrast.  "Come on. Show me you're living."

Felix freezes, everything inside of him seizing rapid and overtaking his every blood vessel and vein. There’s something needy in the way Peter rolls. Felix is too far gone to do anything but oblige, accenting every motion with an unbridled noise.

His hands wind under Peter’s arm, capping on his shoulders, and he tugs him down to his level. Peter laughs, but catches himself with a fistful of satin and skin. Felix rubs his lower lip in the synapse between Peter’s and breathes out, starts to articulate words unheard by all and lost to time.

The next time they kiss, Felix is smiling. There’s a strange air of familiarity. Peter’s flush against Felix’s stomach, knees folded under, clenching around his sides. Felix paws at his face, open-mouthed and pressing  forward and inward, in flux of greedy tongue and teeth.

Peter returns the motion, withdrawing just to test the hypothesis that Felix will follow.  He does. It seems silly to doubt it now.  

Releasing the sheets, Peter pins Felix down into the mattress. One last lingering kiss before he departs. He takes a moment to watch the lag in Felix. Another to examine the bruising on his lips. Now he’s flashing up a brow and a twist to his lips when he notes how they’ve begun to purple.

He’s surprised in how much he misses the warmth of bodies pressed together.

Peter lifts up his hand, snapping his thumb and middle finger together. The cracking sound echoes in the empty room, loud and resonate.

Felix hums, rubs unsure little circles into Peter’s thighs. Then he notices the clasps of his vest have cracked, fallen off and are now taking up space beside Peter’s knee. He starts to ask, but finds distraction on his chest. The leather of his vest liquefies a second later, hot and thick batter, drips down the slopes of his body and pools on the sheets beneath.

A second snap and it evaporates. It’s nothing more than a warm impression soaked through his clothes. Memories stuck in the strong scent of leather and body heat.

Three layers of Felix’s tunics rip apart at the seams. The bay of tearing fabric yowls.  Peter shakes it off in the same motion, throwing the scraps of material over his shoulders without care.

Peter's always enjoyed looking at the expanse of jagged scars mapping his Lost One. Canyons dug into the flesh by mermaid’s nails, full bitemarks left over from nymphs hundreds of years ago. There are black and blue splotches all over from unremembered and unimportant brawls and scrimmages. Trails of knives and swords, barren and curled remainders from antlers and talons and thorns.

Felix has been bombarded and roughed by Neverland. There’s a story in the markings,  upwards of a thousand stories. It’s intriguing and magnetic, something about the life in the scarring and the way they twist and move and breathe.  Enamoring all on their own.

Peter’s wry grin slopes across his face. He fumbles at his own belt, lifting the clasp to slide the strip of leather out of the way. Sparking in his delayed, languid sloth, he shirks his belt. He smirks, waiting until he hears the clang of the buckle against the floorboards before he slips the suede down his arms. It’s teasing  the rest of the way off to toss it on the footboard behind him.

A slow, long drag.

Peter can’t help but contain a laugh at Felix’s huffy sigh. He’s releasing a tiny snarl without anything worse than irritation. No real anger. But he sits up with snappish precision. He throws the mesh scrappings of a shirt out of the way. Peter’s rid of his last layer in a scanty few seconds before Felix stretches his palms to cover his ass, clasping Peter in flush against his own chest.  

They can both feel their heart beating, as though it’s whole. It’s a heavy simultaneous thumping, racing forward, faster for a moment, and faster still in the next.

A sense of realism settles in as Peter murmurs the final spell, as the rest of their clothes turn to mist and then to nothing at all. Felix’s prick grinds against Peter’s hip, smearing a sticky line over the flat of his abdomen. He catches, pausing, seeing Felix all in flesh and covered in bruises and scars, lit up in life and heartbeats and fluid. There’s something gorgeous in it, in him.

It occurs to Peter it isn’t a question of want anymore, judging by the way everything inside him spins towards Felix, it’s a question of need.

He, Peter Pan, really fucking needs Felix.  

And that’s frightening as hell.  It’s one thing to want somebody, but to _need_ them?

Put it in words, dot the I’s and cross the T’s. Maybe then it will be less dangerous.

Felix noticed Peter’s brevity, and he retreats, rests on his elbows. “Did I do something?”

It’s almost funny that Felix is the one asking. Almost.

“No.” And Peter swallows down Felix’s throat, twitching in time to their shared pulse, pushing into skin.

Felix beats and pulses, and they’re sloppy and loud and heavy but neither one cares, because the other is warm and alive.

Nevermind anger or hurt or facts or logic. There’s something physiological in the air. Perhaps from this moment on they’re cursed to forever be on the same page. They can think about it in the morning.

Right now, it’s okay.

Peter lifts up higher onto his knees, pressing Felix into his chest. He hovers, presses down blunt atop Felix, not  yet falling through.  

When the magic sets in, Felix coughs. He feels the spell drip down him, turning his skin and toying with the nerve endings, turning ticklish and warm as it works him slick. “Impatient?”

Peter shuts him up, licking a long line across his lips. “What do you think?”

Felix prefers to work from the ground up, to rub and kiss and make something of foreplay. Prefers to use real oil and get messy.

But then again, sometimes there’s a necessity to get fucked and get fucked now.

Peter thinks this is one of those times.

As though to drive the idea home, Peter releases a new burst of magic. Fluttering in his lashes and twitching, giving off very obvious expressions. Once they were quite familiar. It’s an odd thought, but Felix does feel the slightest pang of irritation in not getting to do himself. But Peter’s face, as he mutters a spell to stretch himself open, is elated, delighted. It almost makes up for it. 

Humming in his chest, Felix grabs either side of Peter’s hips, guides him down. He doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until he’s forced to draw another, quick and sharp. Peter sinks on him with a throaty whine and an arch in his spine, curving in and collapsing over and over again.  

They share the same berated puffs of air. As they condense against one another. As Peter moves and Felix retaliates.

They’re not kissing, and it takes Felix a moment to realize it, and Peter might be so rapt he might not notice at all. Their mouths rest against the other, open and needy, but there’s no pressure, no tongue, no seduction.

Just breath. Just a matching pulse. Just the feeling of a boiling fever building up within their veins. Just base vital signs to remind them both that they’re alive.

Peter's blown up and away, presses up to Felix, who's hard and flushed and makes noises. It’s strangled in a mix of moaning and whining.

And Peter wants this, and he needs this, and he rakes his hands on Felix's chest.  Skin scrapes up under his nails as another form of intimacy.

It's been so fucking long since the’ve done this. But he’s got magic on his side, so anything that might need compensation fell down below the limbic system. Which might be for the best, because Peter doesn’t want to take the time to reach the higher areas of his brain, not right now.

He shudders when Felix wraps his hand around his cock. Starts to slide and steeple his fingers. Brushing underneath loose skin, making Peter arch and sigh, vocalizing a small warble and sigh. 

Felix adjusts, a small shift. Peter’s face scrunches in, his jaw drops as he’s taken in further. There’s a pause, but then Peter’s clawing at his hair, scraping up his spine, reinventing the countless scars mapping Felix’s skin. Scrawling his name all over Felix's long body in feral runes.

Felix shakes and revels in the feeling of Peter riding him. He’s tightening and carrying on long strings of sound.  One hand presses marks into his hip, the other runs up and down hot twitching skin leaking and spilling down his knuckles.

And they’re trying to drown the flood, to scorch the fire, to asphyxiate the noose.

Felix folds in on himself. He sinks lower into the mattress and drives Peter down to meet his hipbones. Peter arcs and stims as the action builds up faster and faster and harder and more, more, more more _more._

They find the other’s mouth and taking each other in, buried and full and condensed.

Thanks to another spell,  it’s an hour before it ends. 

Felix is first, lipping onto Peter’s tongue. His hand jerks as his body roils, pressure relieving deep inside him, shooting out and pulsing through his stomach. He’s so overcome in the intensity and ferocity. No articulate syllables come out, he only shouts.

Peter laughs, but just for a moment. It’s a faster build up, a warm prickling through every inch of his body. And he’s warm and complete. He says the name and he’s exposed in the midst of the euphoria.

Once it fades,  they come to realize the ragged way they’re panting, loud and abrupt. The weight of the world teases just above them. It’s threatening to settle in as Peter’s drawing shapes in the sticky mess he leaves on Felix's chest. Felix lies down, runs a hand through his hair and stares at the ceiling.

Peter pulls off with a grunt, acute awareness in the hot fluid dripping down his thigh. He takes a surviving scrap of Felix's tunic and wipes it all away before taking a spot beside his boy on the pillow. It’s indelicate, but it suffices.

They don't speak, just curl up into the covers. Peter on the right side and Felix on the left.

It’s late, the night is at its blackest and will get brighter from here. And they both hope it's transitive.

It’s funny how lack of physical contact can change things. How his heartbeat is weaker, everything feels slower, caught in a groggy surrealism. It’s a woozy feeling, as though he’s had one too many glasses of wine after forgoing supper.

There’s one way to correct it, to bring everything  to real time. He has no reason for trepidation, no reason to hoard pride, but finds himself tentative as he slides over on the sateen sheets.  Felix lifts onto his side, and Peter presses close enough to feel their heartbeat.

The tipsiness fades, but his stomach still feels empty. A moment later memories of the whole night pops and spitfires in his brain. There’s a brief moment, a short lapse to draw conclusions. He won’t admit it’s guilt that he even had to resurrect Felix in the first place.

But he revived him, inverted the fabric of reality on itself. And all because he fucked up and did something he regrets; the one thing he's regretted in hundreds of years.

“What is it?” Felix asks, leaning up onto his elbow, tone edged with panic. Wondering if,  perhaps, he’d done something wrong.

Odd thought.

Peter frowns, refuses to think, and sifts his hand through Felix’s wiry snarls. He grabs at his hair when he kisses him next, open and careless, and he moves him like a puppeteer. As far as this is concerned, Felix doesn’t mind, moves his arms in reaction to Peter, slides on his hands and knees and clings to him.

They part, and Felix gives a tight introspective chortle. His mind’s still fuzzy and warm, too caught up in the residual pinpricks under his abdomen to want to kill them by remembering the circumstances.

Peter clicks his tongue, takes Felix’s head in again, and sweeps him up and away.

The next thing Peter realizes, he's springing up on an empty mattress.

The curtains are splayed wide open, bringing icy air into the chamber, and the orange and red smears of dawn leak into the room, bathing everything in gold. It gives the illusion it should be warm, but as it is, Peter shivers.

Or, perhaps, that’s because the duvet is gone.

Swinging his legs down to the floor, Peter yawns and surveys the chamber. He snaps to his senses when he sees a bundle of the red silk leaning against the rail of the balcony. He pushes himself off the mattress, and tries to ignore the strain in his muscles. A moment more and he finds himself in the doorway and immediately after, standing up against the railing beside Felix. Snow melts against the soles of his bare feet, but he won’t allow himself to turn blue.

Felix is wrapped up in the warm blanket, it bunches around his shoulders as he clutches at it. For a moment he doesn’t remove his gaze from the black line on the horizon. Everything’s surrounded by mountains and white fields, until it brightens and saturates into red, streaking the snow in blood.

Then, he tilts towards Peter. “Don’t you want to cover up?’

Peter finds it easy, for what feels like the first time in the past month, to leave his words uncalculated. “Oh whatever will I do if the monkeys see me naked?”  

“I’d be more concerned with frostbite.”

“Nothing a little magic can’t fix.”

Felix’s smile is tight-lipped and shut, but it’s familiar and unintimidating.

Or, at least until it fades.

“What?” Peter turns to face him, one hand bracing himself for something he can’t be sure is coming.

“This is complicated as hell.”  Felix adjusts the finery on his shoulders, slouches to meet Peter on a more even level. He takes his time resting his elbows inches away from Peter’s hand.

“As a rule, I don’t apologize or feel sorry or any of it,” Peter begins, forced easiness in his cadence. “But you know how I feel about rules.”

With the morning comes clarity, Felix thinks. And despite the betrayals, and the knowledge of some sort of insane True Love magic keeping him put, he  can’t be bothered to feel upset about it anymore.

What does it matter he’s bound to Peter? He wouldn't have left in the first place.

What does it matter there’s a spell declaring that they love each other? They did before the label weighed them down.

So what does any of it matter? It’s all white noise. Just complications.

There’s a moment of silence, the warm sunlight turns the sky pink and red, all alight. The freezing night air still nippy but sucumbing to radiation. Peter stifles a shiver.

“Fuck it.”

Felix reaches out, hooking Peter behind the neck, and presses their lips together, a quick, clean motion. A mutual thought neither one of them have the audacity to articulate. The apology and acceptance thereof would have been far too sweet to put into words for either of their comfort.

But it works.

Even so, they’d have to be stupid not to notice the shift. The way Peter’s starved for touch in a way he hasn’t felt in years. And the feeling inside of him is intense, curling against his insides, and in the moment he looks Felix in the eye, he can tell it’s shared.

Peter steps forward and gestures to the cocoon of red satin Felix has wrapped about him. “I’m cold. Let me in.”

There’s an air of _'I told you so'_ to Felix’s expression. Nevertheless, he wraps his arms around Peter’s shoulders and closes the duvet around them. It’s an entr'acte in the snow-birdsong and dancing snowflakes as the sky lightens, switching from red to blue.

Never one for sentimentality, Peter smirks, tightens his fist around the material before yanking it away. He’s all grins as Felix stumbles and tries to grapple with the material as Peter wears the duvet as though it were some sort of bizarre cape.

A sincerity that’s a little frightening glides over Peter’s face before he turns impish. He’s turning around to give no indication he had any interest in sharing the duvet.  Felix has kept his fist on the border and grabs at it.

They’re adversaries for a moment, tugging on opposite ends of the cover. Felix has his strength, and after a short amount of time, gets the upper hand. On the third attempt, the duvet gives and Peter lurches forward.

He trips over his feet, though it is intentional. Now he’s swinging the material over Felix’s shoulders in a manner choreographed to look accidental.

It’s impossible to say who moves first, perhaps they’re moving together. Peter won’t ascend onto his toes, however, and he pulls Felix down, nosing into the hollow by his collarbone.

Felix maneuvers Peter’s face up, bites his lips until they’re dotted in pins and needles. He decides damn the duvet in order to put his hands on him in more places.

Peter laughs and nestles away. Words pass, nothing more than the bombast Felix claimed wouldn’t fix anything. But soon enough he’s biting down on swollen  lips. Peter jumps up, hitching his legs around Felix’s hips to cross them by his thighs, and they stumble into the threshold, curtains billowing shut behind them.

When Felix drops Peter onto the mattress, he bounces off and into the bedpost. He uses the rebound to turn the spread of his limbs into a coincidence. An easier method to splay his legs and try to find traction on the satin for his feet.

Felix stands, fists balled up on the leftover sheets, hair mussed in hundreds of different directions. Every bit of him races in a never ending loop up and around Peter’s body. If it were possible with someone like Peter Pan, it might look like he wants to take him apart.

And the thought, Peter realizes, is somehow alluring.

He darts to his knees and presses an open kiss to the pulsing vein in Felix’s neck. His fingers steeple and press in some sort of cypher up his arms, spine, shoulders. A hand wrapped in the feathers hanging by Felix’s ear, and Peter tugs in a sort of painful command to join him. Peter reclines, ankle twitching in the air as though it’s beckoning him closer.

Despite his height, Felix hoists himself up onto the high bed and scrapes his nails up the side of Peter’s leg. Peter slides on the slippery surface of fitted sheets, coming to rest with the soft skin on the tops of his thighs bracketing Felix’s hips. The heat and dampness inside his cock radiates and singes all the way to his tailbone.

And Peter laughs, hot and mad; Felix is teetering on the timbre of the sound.

Ignoring the heaviness in both of their chests, Felix steals that secret smile and skims the flat of his palm down his calf. Peter’s got one leg in the air and the other twitching amongst the bedclothes over the flatness of Felix’s hip. His shoulders feel heavy in the pillows. It isn’t a comfortable position, but he snatches Felix’s vacant wrist and prompts him to peel down his foreskin with his thumb.

Peter sighs and arcs into Felix’s hands. He reciprocates with fleeting fingertips on his arms, with slow rutting  against him. With a noise sounding like gratitude in the mewls and gruff moans.

Felix’s tongue scrapes against the bottom of  his heel. He laughs when the action repeated on the softer skin in the arch of Peter’s foot makes his toes curl and his leg bend in on itself. Felix’s hand worms in between the compression of Peter’s thigh and calf. It’s hot and growing sticky with sweat.

“There - all warm.”

“Not yet,” Peter’s voice always sounds matter-of-fact. “But getting there.”

“Is it my job,” Felix all but hums, large battle-roughed hands hiking up Peter’s ribs and circling low on his belly but not low enough. “To be your blanket?”

“I was thinking something more…” He pauses, waits a second for emphasis. The words are white noise next to the screaming way his body is straining against Felix, but he continues. “Intimate. But if you’d rather lie idle.”

“When have you known me to lie idle?”

“Well, right now for--”

There’s a jolt and, despite the interruption, Peter slides up on the bed as Felix pushes his way in.

Felix’s hands are straining and flexed. He’s bent on friction and marking. He’s culling Peter in, quick, rough, stop-and-go. And Felix keens to the feeling, to the imagery, to the sounds. Peter’s pent up energy, tight and hot and encompassing and the axis of the whole world.

They’re shaking, the world is doubling, and there’s nothing on Peter’s mind but, _That, just that. There you go. You know how I like it. Harder now. More, more, more, more._ Words, however, aren’t feasible, and strings of unintelligible sounds have to suffice.

Felix is somewhere between rock and water. The oxymoron is defined by the way he melts and pushes. In the way he refuses to look at anything but open gasp in the boy below him. The way Peter arches against the sheets with his shoulders.

Peter is steepling in his spine, darting up like tower. His heartbeat suffices as a bells’ tremendous clanging inside. And Felix is lauding worship and ritualistic adoration.

When Peter starts to stim and pulse, chewing a chunk from his own tongue, Felix gives a pause, but then scoops the boy up. Peter feels as though all his bones have melted into something viscous and he’s surprised Felix has the strength to jostle him up.

“Shit!” Peter's blinded, though, after the jolt. The sun has risen in the sky, and found the perfect place to slip into his line of sight. Rays overpowering and swarming into the air. He curses and ducks into the hollow of Felix’s shoulder, blinking away the pricks of light dotting his vision.

Peter can hear the smirk on Felix’s face. “That made you scream louder than I could.”

There’s nothing else to do: they laugh. Both of them.

It’s been three hundred years, and because Peter’s magic prevents mishaps, it’s the first time they’ve laughed like this. Because of the fault in something out of their control, an awkward halt in the passion that does nothing but destroy the mood.

Or, if not destroy it, shifts the mood.

Because now Felix is pressing against his lip, drinking him in with a closed kiss and pulling without force. A dozen kisses without dual intention. It’s nothing more than the well-known urge to keep his mouth busy.

His hands slide up and down his ribs, his legs, and before Peter knows what he’s doing he deflates into a pile of pillows. The dawn’s turned blue in his peripheral. It darkens and twists into black shadows when Felix ghosts his lips up the trails of beading sweat by his ribcage and collarbone.

“Takes a lot to get you out of the mood, doesn’t it?” Peter teases at the same time his tongue draws a small circle just over his bottom lip.

”Actually it’s nice to see you like this in sunlight again.” Felix’s voice is downplayed, flatlined by his own natural temperament. Although the statement reeks of sentiment,  it isn’t as grating as it might be otherwise.

And so Peter hooks his ankles around Felix’s ribcage and latches onto his neck. He’s biting and sucking so hard it feels like it’s coming from his spine.

Felix sighs, draws out the noise as long as he can. He feels Peter’s breath shift into a laugh on his neck, until he can feel his tongue dampening the bruise.

He pushes on his hands, casting a shadow over Peter in the chilled morning light. There’s a tickle under his skin and he uses both hands to push on the softer skin inside Peter’s thighs to spread him wider.

“What do you want, then?” Peter’s voice riding a faultline between impatience and seduction.

Felix allows his eyes to speak for him, darkening and growing,  his thumb between his lips. He takes his time in laving his tongue over the skin. Soon it’s made soft and leaves a small string of saliva behind as he moves his hand down over Peter.

The magical boy shudders as Felix’s thumb skims and presses down. The hand’s articulating and circling around and bring him to full hardness. Peter arcs and tries not to let his toes curl when Felix starts to draw his palm in harsh patterns. He dips underneath the foreskin, sighing down the noises Peter’s kettling out in obscene strings.

It feels like forever to Peter. It’s forever of Felix drawing along, sending shivers as he treads the pads of his fingertip. Of the delicious pains of nails pulling excess skin down his blood-swollen cock.  Forever of reaching out snatching Felix’s hair, eliciting sharp hisses and twitches into his hand.  

Peter looks as though he’ll throw a fit in two seconds. Rocketing his hips up towards Felix as he moves in such drunken slow motion they both have to take a moment to recall if this is quite real.

They quiver. The ache from unsuspecting stimulation to intimate muscles. The rough _fantastic_ sequence of Felix pumping into Peter, and they’re hissing.

Felix moves with a languid delayed presence. It’s as commanding and impressive as his gait, specific and thought-out as his cadence. Raw and thorough as two bodies dripping in sweat and thick spurts of precome, driven heavy in magic. In pure intoxication from the knowledge. Neither of them can express in anything restrained.

Peter presses his thighs against Felix’s ribs. He’s grinding in an effort to conduct Felix’s endeavor to consume him whole. They continue even as the sky warms and grows muggy and hot. Peter’s skates into a series of peaks. Head bent up, chest pointing to the sky as his hips spasm and drive.

And he- Peter Pan - is letting himself get completely fucked.

Fucked into the bed, melting into the movements and left to naught but ecstatic retaliation. A note sustaining for ages - _in, in, **in**_ \- until he’s dizzy.  Felix catches, purrs, and he holds. He withdraws each time, slow, developing a bitter jealousy over the part of him still inside. The desire to barrel and rock and bruise apparent, but whenever Peter urges for a quicker pace, he slows down more.  

It’s infuriating for the moment it lasts.

But it’s all eclipsed by the next scalding fit. Lazy and slow, as though they have all the time in the world.

It’s all sedated kisses and delayed twists of tongue. Its latent sliding hands might be perceived as delicate if not for the obvious intention behind it.

They’re both exhausted. Slipping into an unimaginitive pattern of slow thrusts and low muted responses. Of profanities slurred so the intended explicative muddles beyond recognition.

Peter’s swept up then, deviating the slow and the lazy, and white-hot shivers blanketing everything. His vision’s dotted and swayed under the intensity flooding every inch of him. He’s finding release in the jerking mess he’s spilling against Felix’s stomach. He stops and teeters on the edge of consciousness, bright sunlight on the verge of blacking out.  

He can feel the open kiss Felix slavs onto his neck until the feeling fades. All sloppy tongue and amatory lips. It’s as though he’s trying to hoard Peter’s orgasm for himself, as though that’s the part he vies for.

Watching Peter come undone is what Felix looks forward to. This is both the most rewarding and most jarring part in having sex with him.

But until he’s drained, Peter can’t bring himself to care.

And afterwards, it’s all Felix. Peter worms his way into his Boy’s throat. He’s slopping their tongues together for the pattering shiver it sends through their spinal cords. An extra spell for flexibility and Peter can crook a finger inside him. The pace increases and Felix sinks into Peter’s exhausted heat.

Felix’s spent now, just before in the soreness inside Peter would have turned to pain. He comes on a breath of Peter’s name, a final push driving itself buried and snug, the bone of Felix’s hip meeting the muscle on Peter’s ass.

He pulls out for longer than he needs to, and Peter’s sleepy groan drawls through the room.

“Do that again.”  Felix’s strained voice can make the request. But it’s fogged between the slew of slow kisses he places across Peter’s lips, chin, the vein in his neck.

“Don’t get entitled,” Peter smirks through a heaving chest. He has to pause when Felix’s tongue traces the flat of his chest. As he licks the contours of his abdomen. Lips close over the aching tip of his exhausted cock. “ _Fe_ \--You know you’ve got to-- _oh, fu_ \--work for it.”

“I intend to.”

Felix snickers into the jut of Peter’s hip before nosing further. He tongues the slope of Peter’s thigh and he grins at the gasp. A short vocalization away from a moan as he feels the salty tang of his own come slide down his throat.

There’s teeth, benign nibbling. Felix maneuvers Peter’s legs over his shoulders and planes down.

Peter goes  rigid when Felix’s tongue slides inside him. It’s soft, hoping to relieve the ache in his wrought and battered muscles. Dabbing them with wetness and soothing swipes. Clearing and devouring physical evidence from the night.

He melts thereafter. He’s basking in the flickers and wet compression of muscles coaxed into submission and repair after such amazing overuse.

By the time Felix’s kisses return to his thighs, Peter is wrecked.  

Felix relaxes between Peter’s knees. Despite lack of traction from sweat, Peter hauls him up beside him on the bed by the forearms. Claiming his mouth open and needy, overexcited heartbeat, trickling sweat, and familiarity.

Peter releases a spell, cleaning bedclothes and cooling their skin as they lie beside one another. Their lungs regulate as the magic controls their sweat, but perhaps they miss the lag as their heartbeats descend.

Felix gives him a lazy smile. “Good to be back.”

Peter considers sitting up, but decides he’d rather savor the ache before magic rips it all away. Instead, he lolls onto his side. “You’ve been back.”

“Not like this,” Felix leans in and nibbles on Peter’s ear for a moment before he’s swatted away. “It’s been too long.”

“It’s been, at most, a year.”

“Too long, like I said.”

And Peter laughs, propping himself up onto his elbows. “Well let’s not go so long without it again, shall we?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 **T** hey have a few scanty  days to adjust to the new development. But then a cloud of green smoke took them off and threw them down onto the snowy streets in the middle of Storybrooke.

It was mildly inconvenient, but Peter was good at taking things in stride. He reminded himself of this as he turned to Felix, watching his face for minute reactions to being back in this place. He seemed no different than before, no relapse just yet, no discomfort. .

“All right, remember the plan?” Peter said, brushing the smoky remains of the curse off his trousers. “It should work.”

Felix didn’t bother to swipe away the magic, and it remained and hovered about him for a few good seconds as he bit his cheek. “Unless they fire on sight.”

Peter glares at the relatively new and entirely unhelpful remark.. “Try some optimism from time to time, Felix. It might do you good.”

Which, Felix thinks might’ve been a faux boost of confidence on Peter’s part. The first thing he did when the others rolled into town and the Queen’s hands ignited and the strings on the bows drew, was fling his hands up into the air and cry out in a put-on innocent voice, “Don’t shoot!”

It was a whirlwind of accusations and interrogations afterwards, and Peter took the lead. Making sure to swallow thick and draw little puppydog faces to appeal to their better nature.

Or, well, to make an attempt.

It was a bit difficult as long as the Evil Queen’s fist was on Peter’s collar and a hand full of flame right before his nose insisting “He must’ve cast the curse.”

To which Peter had shrunk back, forcing out a voice edging on mousy.  “I’d say I haven’t believed in magic since I was little, but, er, your hands are on fire.”

(Felix thought he should reel it in a little.)

Belle was the next to speak, a small hopeful thought: perhaps, this meant Rumple was still alive.

Peter made sure to keep his expression stupid. “Who? And, for that matter, who am I?”

It was safe to say it escalated. A  few of the more relevant townspeople were reluctant to act until Prince David and Snow White return from the hospital. They wanted to make an informed decision. It made the Evil Queen rub her temples, but Felix would be lying if he said he wasn’t thankful.

And so, they’re crammed into the tiny holding cell in the dinky sheriff's office. Through the barred window they saw people stalking around in befuddlement. People who lived their whole lives in the Enchanted Forest and dropped here without any sort of previous know-how.

It seemed as though Peter and Felix were the last priority. Which wouldn’t have been an issue, if not for the tall burly man deemed guard for them while in the cell. If not for him, they could act normal. But, in order to maintain a believable story, they had to keep up the charade.

For Peter, it was an opportunity for a fun game.

“So, what’s your name?” The corners of Peter’s lips twitched, daring to smile, but he kept them down.

“Not sure,” Felix deadpanned, sinking into his cloak to hide the fact he’s shit at telling lies. “You?”

“Same. What...what do you think we did to make them hate us so much?”

Felix shrugged.

Peter then, seeing Felix wasn’t quite as enthusiastic with their little acting session, decided to switch tactics. “Why d’you think we were together? And why it’s just us? D’you think we’re friends?”

There was a small glint in Felix, and he made no effort to hide from neither Peter nor the guard the way his eyes dripped down his body. “I think I’d like to be.”

Peter gave a small yelp, a tiny laugh. “We just met.”

“Not necessarily.”

Peter chewed on his lip, approval and enjoyment of the game. He hid it visibly under the layer still acting and milking the situation for the guard and security tapes. “Well, if we ever get out of here,” He sighed, drew his glance in a similar pathway, “We’ll see if you can get lucky.”

“I’ll try to be optimistic.” Felix leaned back onto the cell wall, hidden enjoyment of the way he turned Pan’s words back to him.

“Realistic.” Peter challenged, inching forward.

Something might’ve happened, but the guard coughed, feeling a bit uncomfortable. So they resumed acting and venting frustrations over having no idea of anything. Perfect strangers in a bad situation. They played their parts well, if they’d say so themselves.

Of course, that was an hour ago. It’s a slight sting to the ego to be the last priority. To only be considered after the entire Enchanted Forest was stuffed into a cramped diner and distributed to places to stay. After a parade of cheerful and hopeful speeches.

But, now, a very pregnant Snow White breaks through the door, followed by David, and the Evil Queen herself.

Snow White sends him a kind glance and, oh, this is an opportunity Peter can’t pass up.

“Are you my mum?”

Her jaw drops from either pity or concern.  Peter can’t help but notice how everyone else exchanges a glance and a thought between themselves. Or, well, everyone else but the Evil Queen, who has her flashing manicured nails on her hips and is mumbling under her breath.

Peter turns sheepish. “I...I don’t have a mum, do I?”

Snow White shakes her head, hand rotating absently over her enormous stomach.

“And me?” Felix asks, quiet, shifting his position on the cot.

“No.”

“Can’t you see what they’re doing?” Regina calls out, gesturing an arm into the cell.

“I’m not so sure,” Snow White hovers over a chair, plopping down.

David picks up where she left off. “None of us remember the last year, anything could’ve happened.”

Regina rolls her eyes. “There’s no way after what he did - he can’t just turn around and not be a threat.”

Peter shrinks into himself. “What did I do?”

David speaks up next, “If they really do have no idea of who they were and what they did, it’d be unethical to keep them locked up.”

Regina throws a hand up. “He’s our only lead for casting this curse.”

“But whose heart?” Snow White shuffles in her chair.

“All the Lost Ones are accounted for.”  David puts in, gesturing over to Felix for a beat, indicating Pan’s alibi. “If it’s the same curse, he had no way to cast it.”

Peter makes a show of blinking and falls onto the cot beside Felix. “What curse? What the hell are you all on about? I just want to go home.”

Felix has to admit Peter’s a damn good actor when he wants to be.

“We’re not suggesting they walk free,” David crosses his arms at his chest. “But we need the cell empty. We have no idea what we’re dealing with.”

“We’re dealing with _him_.”

“Flying monkeys were never Pan’s style.”

Regina huffs, and then sighs, rolling back a sleeve. “Fine. But that doesn’t mean I’m not taking precautions.”

She waves her hand and Peter feels a wave of hot angry magic encircle around his leg, coming to focus against the bumps on his ankle. He lifts his foot up to his chest, and shoos his spats to the side in order to get a good look at a tiny link-chain, glowing red against his skin. He cocks a brow and looks up towards the Evil Queen.

“A tether,” She says. “So no matter what you’ve got planned, I can track you down. Don’t go using magic either. It’s enchanted so I can tell exactly what you use and what for.”

Well, Peter thinks, that might result in some secondhand embarrassment on the Queen’s part. Instead he brings the innocence back to his eyes. “I have magic? What, am I some wizard or something?”

“Doesn’t matter, since you won’t be using magic anytime soon.”

Peter cocks a brow and somehow manages to appear confused.

“Don’t believe me?” The Queen says, voice dark. “Try it.”

Felix can tell Peter’s trying not to smirk. He does so love his games.

Throwing on a face of blank curiosity, Peter draws his hand up to get a better look. He figures a levitation spell is easy enough, and places a dry voice and throws his hand up--

“Ow!” He’s interrupted as the fan outside the cell lifts in the air. A white hot feeling in his hand, sudden and sharp. A short thrum of pain and he can tell Felix is making an effort not to react.

The Queen conjures a glowing ring on her thumb. As the pain dissipates, disappearing as face as it came, the ring dulls, void of all light.

Snow White squirms in her seat and the prince frowns. “Don’t you think that’s a bit much?”

“Consider it a precaution.”  

The Queen refuses to budge. They’ll have to make do without magic; but that can’t be too much of a challenge.

Peter blinks, nods, and then gives one long dramatic sigh. “All right. Great. I should probably just accept this as I go. But, one more thing: what the hell is my name?”

 

They’re given separate rooms above Granny’s diner, but they both know it won’t last long. Felix is pulling on a pair of denims given to him by the townsfolk by the time he feels the waves of nausea fade. Peter doesn’t bother knocking, just slips behind the door.  

He hasn’t changed yet and blinks when he sees Felix in denim and a sweatshirt. “Look at you,” He smirks. “Making an effort to blend in.”  

“Look at you not.” Felix retorts, earning a small laugh from the slighter boy, who’s now crossed the room throws their mouths together.

“What’s the point?” Peter snickers between kisses. “We’re in for the night, aren’t we?”

Stretching  both hands on the small of Peter’s back, Felix presses him up on the edge of the mattress.  It’s barely an instant before crouching down in front of him. He nestles into the crease between Peter’s legs with his chin and his fingers fumble around the laces of his spats.

Peter grins and relaxes onto the palms of his hands. He eagerly parts his knees at Felix’s nudging and allows the fire to take over his eyes. Not before a moment of sobriety. “You’re okay then?”

Felix’s hands don’t stop attempting to loosen the double knot on the underside of Peter’s calf. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Environmental relapse,” Peter shrugs, eyes scouring Felix’s face for some sort of muted sign. "Or something."

There is nothing but a small victory as Felix manages to loosen the strings. “Keep me out of the forest and I’ll be fine.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.” Felix kisses his knee before cocking his head up towards Peter. “Is this really what you want to talk about right now?”

There’s a warmth inside his stomach as he arcs his brow. It summits and burns as he absorbs everything in the moment: steely eyes, crouched position, obvious intent. Worse still when Felix takes a single fling to toss Peter’s spats across the room.

Felix hoists one of Peter’s legs over his shoulder and pecks up the inside of his thigh. Peter’s fingers scrape against his scalp. He isn’t herding him anywhere, but pulling on the knotted blond tangles in tight fists. Felix’s tongue flicks through the material in response, mewling low. He tastes dirt and cotton, revels in the frustrated grunts Peter’s emitting as he jostles his hips into Felix’s nose.

Felix snickers but complies. His tongue traces the imprint of Peter’s cock through his trousers. When it twitches under the material, Felix sits up higher on his knees and sucks hard. Opens his mouth wide to bring him up further until he’s tented in his pants to full capacity.

Keening, Peter holds Felix’s head in both hands, pulsing his hips up and sighing a loud hiss to the way Felix licks down his crotch. He’s suckling on his bollocks and smiling into the feeling of Peter’s legs tightening on either side of his head.

Peter doesn’t mind loosening his own laces, bucking his hips upwards.  Felix’s insistent face sweeps up to stay close. His trousers slide off his hips by his own accord. Felix helps them the rest of the way until they’re sitting in a pile between Peter’s heels.

Felix is still kissing his thighs and skimming his lips up Peter’s cock, mouthing into and around his foreskin, lipping at his flushing cockhead.

He was never one for too much teasing, but he sure is taking his time.

Stripping down without magic means stopping. Peter almost groans when they break apart, but shoves the rest of his clothes away and skitters closer to the headboard.

Fumbling backwards onto the bed, Peter stretches out. Felix crawls on his hands and knees, keeping his face close by every instant.

Peter’s head falls onto the scratchy cotton comforter. A choking moan comes out, borne of arousal coupled with frustration. “Just do it al--”

And Felix interrupts him by sliding up his full length, until Peter brushes at the back of his throat. He keeps one fist in a tight knot around the blanket to still his gag reflexes. His other hand jerks at himself, causing raw moans to erupt around Peter’s prick.

And Peter can’t help the series of unholy noises canting out of his open jaw. It’s all half words and muddled profanities. He’s tightening his thighs around Felix’s neck and angling his hips to position himself deeper into Felix’s gorgeous throat.

Felix has three hundred years of experience, has perfected his methods down to an art. He knows how to banish all traces of teeth, how to coil his tongue in the best way to send shivers up Peter’s spine. He can swallow him down whole, make as many muted noises as he can because he knows Peter revels behind the obscene soundtrack.

Felix knows he can make Peter come hard and quick like this, and he can draw it out slow. He isn’t quite sure which he wants right now. So he preoccupies himself licking down and swallowing the precome seeping down and coating his throat.

He won’t drop eye contact and if Peter were less stubborn he would’ve rolled his eyes back the second Felix put his hands on himself. But now it’s a stalemate, trying to break each other down. And Felix sucks hard and gives in to the tickling in his own abdomen.

He keeps going even as he’s spilling over his own knuckles, wavering in technique only slightly.

Peter gargles in his throat when Felix’s come-spattered hand wraps around the base of his cock.

He can’t last much longer, and does nothing to muffle his moan as he comes. Loud, almost screaming, a combination of a name and an approval, jetting his hips up. He’s feeling the walls of Felix’s throat close in around him as he swallows over and over again, fisted hand pushing Peter’s hips down into the mattress.

Felix pulls off, resting his forehead on Peter’s navel for a beat before running his open mouth, leaking a salty drool of leftover come in a long trail up Peter’s body.

Lips come together, electrified and slippery.

Felix smiles at the way Peter’s panting. “The walls are thin,” He mentions, eyes growing blacker at the thought. “Everyone in this building heard you.”

Peter stills his chest and pulls Felix off his chest and flips their positions. “Let them think I came to you for solace or something.”

“Solace?”

Peter nods, pulling his face into a faux-pout. “Imagine; a poor little lost boy without a single memory or sign or clue for what he was or who he is. Nothing but you. Stands to reason he’d come to you.”

“Poor kid,” Felix shuts his eyes, wrapping a hand around Peter’s bare ribs. He’s nestling the pads of his fingers in the dips between the bones.  

“Indeed,” Peter snickers, scrambling jostled kisses over and over again. He slides his tongue along Felix’s lower lip and pressing flush together.

When they break apart, Felix is the one to ask “What now?”

When Peter grins like this, it’s worth all the gold in the world, Felix thinks. “We wait for the action to start. And in the meantime? We lay it on thick.”

 _Laying it on thick,_ to Peter’s mind, means wandering up and down the street, asking the less assuming townsfolk if they have any idea who they are. And it means making the rest of them believe there’s nothing unsavory happening by acting utterly besotted. Doing things they mercilessly makes fun of the instant they’re behind closed doors.  Walking with intertwined hands, exchanging soft kisses on the street or in a booth at Granny’s, acting lazy and absorbed into themselves.

Felix enjoys the game, though he’s sure he would tire of it if they had to keep it up forever. There’s something uncharacteristically sweet in the way Peter holds his hand, but, judging by the way people are trying not to stare, it’s working.

It’s almost daunting how easy it is to put on that skin. Maybe, if you were to strip away the quaint sentiments,  it just might be half true.

It’s a fun game for the moment. Pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes and making them believe they’re two soppy idiots with nothing better to do than exist alongside one another.

A few days have passed since their arrival in Storybrooke, when Peter sighs irritably and mutters, “You’d think our hands are glued together.”

Felix pauses, loosens his grip on Peter’s knuckles as they turn the corner. “It was your idea.”

The gesture of holding onto each other in something so simple and innocent as walking, they both think, is a bit cloying. But, it’s the easiest way to get their point across.

“I know that. I don’t know, though, how stupid you’ve got to be to…” He’s faded, feeling the acid in Felix’s stomach curdle. “What is it?”

Felix stares forward, a quiet snarl on his lips that looks more like a bandage than anything else. Peter knows what to expect when he turns his head to Felix’s line of vision. Sure enough, he finds himself staring at a group of former Lost Ones lounging in front of the pharmacy. They’re scraggly and pale in the daylight, puffing on unfiltered cigarettes, and using each other as footstools. Peter can recognize Aaron and is trying to figure out whether the twin beside him is Ralph or Edwin when he feels the shake in the heart beside him.

There’s pain in the feeling overriding the tumults of anger swirling alongside it. It’s so vastly peculiar to Peter he has to reach out and stop Felix in his tracks.

“What’s bothering you about it?”

Felix sighs, fingers twiddling on the zip of his jacket. “I just...didn’t expect them to be like that.”

“Well what did you expect?”

He’s slouching, biting into his cheek and searching the ground and sky for the answer. “I didn’t think they’d...still be a unit…” He falters. “It isn’t important.”

It’s difficult for Felix to put to words. There’s something toxic and grating in the way they stand together. The same ones stand a bit taller here who stood taller in Neverland. Everything in the layout of boys, from positioning of limbs to who was talking louder, was the same.

It’s as though centuries of care and friendship didn’t matter to them at all. They are what they are, whether or not Felix is a part of it.

Part of him knows it’s of little consequence. At the end of the day, Felix has half of Peter Pan’s heart in his chest, and that’s more important than being snubbed by a group of homeless brats.

But it still hurts to be disregarded by those he once called Brother.

He must have begun to stare or was shutting out sound because he has no warning before Peter’s up on the balls of his feet, blowing a quick stream of air into his eyes. It stings, but only for the time it takes Felix to blink away his thoughts.

Felix doesn’t want to read concern into Peter’s face, but he just can’t help it.

“Just give it a bit more time,” Peter urges, hushing his voice to prevent eavesdropping, painting on a half smitten look for those who might cast their gaze over. “Once we can be a bit more...open….”

There’s a gleam in Peter’s eye, and it catches Felix’s attention. The hurt taking an immediate backseat to the deviant light flickering all over his friend’s face.

And Peter finishes, “I’ll hold them; you punch.”

Felix nods to show something resembling understanding.

He never expected Peter to bring the conversation to any conclusion. Other than, perhaps,  wondering why the hell Felix was letting the worthless traitors weigh him down. Much less an indication Peter was going to do far more than stand by. He’d do more than oversee whatever might happen when Felix finally gets around to giving the Boys a piece of his mind. He’d take an active role.

It was an option Felix hasn’t thought on, and he won’t take more than a few moments, for fear of leaping to conclusions.

“And,” Peter adds a lilt to his voice and a beam on his face so bright Felix isn’t sure whether it’s genuine or an act for the townsfolk. “Because we can’t wring their necks just yet, how about we give them a good nightmare or two?”

Felix’s lips pull into a sly smirk, and then a grin. “What do you suggest?”

“Follow my lead.” And Peter’s arms wrap around Felix’s neck and he electrocutes him in a kiss that pays no mind to delicacy or decency.

The second they brush apart, Felix can tell what Peter’s intending to do. While he doesn’t think it will give them nightmares, it’ll certainly bother them. And if it’s the closest Felix is going to get to Hammurabi for the time being, he might as well have fun in the meantime.

They continue on the sidewalk, Peter half inside Felix’s jacket, one arm coiling his side. The other plays at the fingers wrapped around his shoulder. It’s too precious, and they’re both certain they’ll have a good laugh about it when they return to their room above Granny’s. For now, though, it serves a purpose, and doesn’t seem quite as absurd as it did before.

“I’m only saying,” Peter’s lifted his volume to a contained shout. He’s keeping one palm pressed to Felix’s and his other arm wraps around him. “You could go a bit easier on me. I swear, I won’t be able to sit for a week.”

“I’ll do my best,” Felix mutters, trying to gauge the boys’ reactions from his peripheral. It’d always been something of a discomfort to them when reminded of the things Pan and Felix did. In Neverland, Felix sympathized. He didn’t care to know about their liaisons either. But now? Let them squirm.

They’re a few steps passed the boys, can still smell the burning tobacco, when Peter lifts up onto his toes and kisses the vein in his neck. His eyes flicker over to the door to Ralph’s left.

“Oh, hey,” He pipes, tightening his grip on Felix’s arm and starting to tug. “I think we’re almost out of lube.”

It’s a near dash through the doors, if for no other reason than to cover up Peter’s laughter. They break apart once they make it through the threshold. Peter snickering against the ice cream cooler at the entrance. Felix scuttles off and presses up to the window.

“How’d we do?” Peter smirks, tapping his ankle on the side of his shoe.

“I don’t know about nightmares,” Felix abandons the window to stand before Peter. “But they look like they just ate a lemon.”

Peter nods, satisfied in  the reaction, before grabbing a basket from the floor and shoving it into Felix’s hands. “We really are running out though.”

There’s a deranged air of usualness to them, Felix thinks, as they stare and bicker over the array of black and purple bottles. He wonders how they got to the point where he’s standing back, his hands crossed at his chest, actually saying,  “Peter, I am not going to have strawberry flavored sex.”

As though the sentence itself isn’t enough of an oddity, Peter doesn’t interpret this as a challenge or way to embarrass him. He picks up a long orange bottle. “What about this?”

Felix squints at the small print and then, much to Peter’s amusement, tinges pink. “That doesn’t even sound comfortable, much less erotic.”

“A little imagination won’t kill you,” Peter tongues the inside of his cheek before giving an elaborate sigh. “But suit yourself. Get the boring stuff.”

They throw a bottle into their basket and make their way through the aisles, adding this or that to their stock. Felix is close to laughter in realization they’re about to buy something as typical and blase as toothpaste. The amusement ends when they cross paths with none other than Snow White and her Prince Charming.

Peter gives a small intentional jump. “Mary Margaret and...David, right?”

The pregnant woman nods, and begins to exchange in pointless small talk with Peter. How’s he been doing? All right, thanks. Any luck regaining memories? No, not quite yet. And so on and so forth. Felix stands just off Peter’s shoulder, adjusting the basket in the crook of his arm, having a silent, knowing exchange with David opposite him.

“It’s a little difficult,” Peter concedes. “Everyone seems to hate us, and we don’t know what we did.”

“Well try not to let it bother you,” Mary Margaret says, hands on her belly. “Everyone deserves a second chance.”

“Hear that, Felix?” Peter mutters under his breath, earning a small nudge in the side. Then he turns to the couple across the aisle. “Yes, well, it can be a bit daunting. It seems like we can’t even have breakfast at Granny’s without people staring. We’d go someplace else, but I don’t know where else there is.”

Felix turns his head over to Peter, wondering just what he’s playing at. A moment later it becomes clearer, though his motivations are still muddled.

“Why don’t you two come over for dinner tonight?” Mary Margaret offers.

David nods, hand between Mary Margaret’s shoulders. “Give you boys a break from diner food.”

The fact they’re finishing each other’s thoughts is a bit bizarre, but Peter accepts the invitation and the small talk ends.   
They stuff a few granola bars into their pockets, but pay for the rest of their merchandise. The former Lost Ones are gone by the time they make it back to the street, and they carry their plastic bag to their room in a few short minutes.

“So why the need to have dinner?” Felix asks, preoccupies himself in putting the toiletries away into the bathroom as Peter finds a seat in the window.

“Positioning,” Peter’s simple answer comes, faded. He’s not paying attention as though there’s something better suited to his attention down on the street.

Felix sighs, figures the answer will come once Peter isn’t distracted. And so he finishes putting away the merchandise. He’s replacing the old bottle in the nightstand when he feels something hiccup inside Peter’s chest, something pumping in his stomach.

“What’s wrong?” From habit, his hand flies to his hip, although he doesn’t have a knife in his belt anymore.

“ _Look,_ ” Peter beckons him, flaps his hand, sounding entranced.

Felix is by his side in a moment, peering out the window. Everything looks normal, and he hesitates to answer for a beat. That’s when he recognizes a long head of blonde hair ducking into the cafe. And behind her? A speck of brunette wearing an all too familiar red and grey striped scarf.

Felix can feel Peter’s excitement, mouth quirking upwards in spite of himself. “Henry?”

Peter doesn’t even try to hide the way the cogs rotate in his skull. “I think things are about to get interesting.”

 

They arrive at the apartment;  their arms flung around each other’s waists for added insurance.

Peter tries so hard not to laugh at the momentary glance of panic in David’s face after he answers the door. By the look on his face, he’d forgotten his wife had invited the two teenage miscreants over for supper.

Oh was this going to be _fun_. He hasn’t had a real spot of fun in a long time, and it’s thrilling enough he knows Felix can feel it from his position to the left.

He brings his face to a worried pout. “Oh, are we here early?”

The look on Emma’s face when they talk through the doorway on David’s flank is priceless. In this world, Peter thinks it’s what they call a Kodak Moment.

Peter would laugh - genuinely wants to - instead he widens his eyes. “Oh. If we’d known this was a party we would’ve dressed nicer.”

He shuffles his eyes around, waiting for their host or hostess to introduce them. The awkwardness alone is enough to even bring Felix to pretend to blow his nose to hide his telltale smirk.

Mary Margaret catches on and gives polite introductions. It prompts Emma’s jaw to fall open, staring in confusion when Peter steps up for a civil handshake.

The voice, gruffer than it had been the last time they spoke, pipes up here. “ _Mom_.”

“Right,” Emma mutters, tossing a hand forward and accepting the gesture. It’s closed and wary, as to be expected. She turns back to her parents a moment later, before they’ve even broken contact. “Can I talk to you two upstair a minute?” She pauses and adds, “Grownup stuff.”

They trot up the rickety stairs (the exception being Mary Margaret, who waddles). Once they’re out of earshot, Peter sighs and plummets down on the sofa, feet grazing the edge of the cushion Henry’s perched on. Felix sits up straight on the adjoining armchair, elbows resting above his knees.

Peter  tilts his head, using his knuckles as a pillow.  “Mary Margaret said you’re Henry, right?”

Henry’s fiddling on some glowing box and, for a moment, his eyes dart down to the box and then up to impeding social interaction. Back down and up. Down and then back to their faces. Then he places his box on the coffee table, swiveling on the cushion to face the two boys in front of him.

“That’s me,” He says, friendly and warm in a way Peter hadn’t experienced in Neverland.

It would’ve made everything so much easier if he'd been this friendly back then, but no need to dwell on the past.

“Your mom seems stressed,” Felix fills the silence. Somehow, he comes off neither as antagonizing nor patronizing.

Nevertheless, Henry’s eyes beat to the ground. “She’s usually a lot better with strangers. ‘S part of her job.”

“Maybe we’ve just got those uneasy faces. Maybe we look familiar,” Peter suggests, winking back at Felix before spinning back to Henry. “Do you think?”

“I don’t know the best way to respond to that.”

Peter shrugs. “Let’s go out on a limb here and say anything goes. Anything at all.”

“Well not really.” Henry looks bunched up, nervous in an odd way neither Peter nor Felix are accustomed to from this particular round face. “But I’ve never been here before.”

“Neither have we,” Felix says. He’s looking something like melted wax as he rests in his chair, perhaps prompting a mirror effect from the younger boy. The specifics of why Peter’s directing them in this way haven’t come to him yet, but nothing can undo the fact Henry is Important. “Well maybe once.”

“Oh? Where are you from?”

Felix falls back into the chair at the same moment Peter pipes, “Hamelin.”

“Isn’t that in Germany or something?” Henry asks.

Peter and Felix exchange a glance, unsure. But, Peter nods with confidence Felix can tell is subpar. “Yeah.”

“So you’re _German?_ ”

“Yeah.” Peter lies. Unsure of the repercussions from this particular lie, he adds, “I mean, technically.”

Felix can’t help but smile at Peter’s utter refusal to backtrack. On the sofa, Peter can feel the affection inside his Boy and swats at his arm absently. 

Henry notices, doesn’t say anything. But there’s something in the way he loosens, sits more comfortably.

They flick on the TV when conversation slows. A cartoon castle and boldfaced script dances across the screen. It’s followed by old fashioned script announcing: _Walt Disney’s the Sword in the Stone_.

Felix snorts, pans out, “Loosely based on real events.”

Peter glares at him for the comment, not wanting to blow their cover. It’s an unnecessary precaution, at least if Henry’s amused grin and small chortle are any indication.

Meanwhile and up the stairs, Emma’s tapping her foot to keep from pacing. “The fact they’re both here, raised from the dead, with so many people missing. I don’t know. It’s bizarre.”

“Regina’s got a tracker on Pan,” David explains. “He hasn’t used magic or done anything suspicious.”

“They just walk around holding hands.” Mary Margaret adds. “Nowhere near where anybody’s been going missing.”

Emma frowns, tightening her arms around her chest. “So you’re telling me you think they had nothing to do with it?”

Mary Margaret’s drawing some oblong shape on her belly. “I think they don’t remember anything.”

“Well they probably did something,” David nods, “But until they know for themselves, it’s safest to let them walk. Not let resentments stir. The last thing we need right now is another rival.”

“No need to punish who they are right now for who they were.” Mary Margaret finishes for her husband, topping off with a small nod.

Emma sighs. One short year ago (and at the same time, a whole lifetime ago) Pan had kidnapped Henry and stole his heart. She wasn’t going to let Henry get hurt again.

But, her parents do have a point.

At least for now, Pan and his tall Lost One aren’t who they’re looking for. And if they are, hopefully Regina’s tether will hold out and it won’t be a concern.

Besides, if Pan started the curse, why would he wipe his own memories? Neal might be missing, but Belle is still alive and well. Weren’t they the first two on Pan’s hit list?

Her intuition whispers at her to let this one go. Nudges her in another direction.

She knows she has to focus on whoever started the curse and why. Henry’s safety isn’t in jeopardy. She’ll keep one eye on Pan as something resembling a lead, but direct her focus elsewhere.

And with it decided, she leads the way downstairs, confident in her decision until she hears her son’s voice.

“And then it’s 3982.”

She’s caught by surprise when Felix’s drawling voice recites back Henry’s cell number.

“That’s it,” Henry nods, pulling himself up on his feet when the other two boys stand as well.

“We’ll see you around then,” Felix says, turning around and tossing Peter his discarded jacket and inching to the door.

“You’re leaving?” Mary Margaret asks, waddling down the staircase.

Peter nods. “We’d hate to interrupt a...happy reunion.” There’s something familiar in his face just now, or perhaps it was all a mirage, because it fades a second later. “We appreciate the invitation though. Perhaps another time.”

And they disappear as quickly as they did on the whims of Neverland.

 

It's understandable, though a bit annoying, in how they have so little time to get to know this cursed version of their Truest Believer.

Felix isn’t holding a grudge over Emma for directing him to other possible companions. Though he does question her intelligence in pushing her son towards the likes of Killian Jones.

But who's to be the judge of character here?

It's taking longer than Peter anticipated, judging by the way he twiddles his thumbs and sits around to wait for the so-called heroes to learn enough for the two of them to state their case.

And in the meantime, it's a tug-of-war for Henry's attention.

Not that it's much competition.

Answer this: if you were a twelve year old boy, do you gravitate to the pregnant couple, the rum-soaked charmer, or the fun teenaged  boys who, quote, unquote, "get it?"

Trick question, isn't it?

At least so it seems now, as they're holed up into a corner booth, hunched over bowls of soup as Henry’s staring down at his glowing box, dodging Mary Margaret’s botched attempts of conversation.

“He looks bored,” Felix mentions as he spoons into his clam chowder,  wincing as it burns the roof of his mouth.

Peter turns over his shoulder and gives a small little nod, half grin setting in his face. “Think we ought to correct that?”

Felix nods and whips the small metal rectangle out of his pocket. They’d found a ‘prepaid cell phone’ in a store. It seemed like something normal boys would want. If nothing else, it might help their guise. Thus they’d allowed kleptomania to get the better of them.

Which, as it turns out as Felix thumbs a quick message to the distracted kid on the opposite wall,  was a decent decision.

He receives the message in a moment, and slides into the booth beside Felix.

"We've delivered you from boredom," Peter says punctuating the statement with his spoon.

Henry shrugs, softer smile on his face. "She's nice. They all are. Just..."

"Not how you want to spend your day." Peter flares his hands and rolls a nod. "We get it."

“Storybrooke’s just a little strange,” Henry shrugs.

“‘S boring,” Felix mutters into a spoonful of steaming clam.

“But less so with a good bit of imagination.” Peter adds, tapping the table with his knuckles. “Which, luckily, I’ve got.”

Leaving no time for debate, he slides out of the booth and all but skips out the door, a ringing bell announcing his departure.

“He wants us to follow him, doesn’t he?” Henry turns his head from where he’d been glancing at the door.

Felix nods. “He does like his grand exits.”

Henry pauses, taps his shoe under the table. “Are you gonna follow him?”

“Of course,” Felix swallows down another spoonful. Then he flicks his head to the kid beside him, “You’re invited too, you know.”

The gleam in his face almost looks appreciative. If Felix knew what appreciation looked like on Henry’s face he might know what to do with this information.

“Right.”

There isn't any reason for a cursed boy to learn how to shoot or make a spear or any of the useful things Felix or Peter could teach him. So, upon exiting the diner, they might be diving in blind. Peter has a plan though, and judging by the look on his face, it’s a good one.

Granted, Felix might've thought to question the blowtorch.

Instead, they found themselves sitting on the fire escape to a Snow White's apartment. They’re skewering balls of condensed sugar on forks and placing them into the blue flame. They’d created little sugar sandwiches of Henry’s design he called “s’mores.” Crackers bracketing a bit of chocolate and melted marshmallow.

Felix’s is done first, having lit his marshmallow on fire. He nibbles at the sandwich, strings of sugary gloop hanging between his teeth and the cracker in his hand.

“‘s sweet,” He comments and takes his time finishing it as Henry teaches them how to achieve a state called Golden Brown.

Apparently this is a worthwhile hobby in this Land Without Magic.

“And that’s how you do it,” Henry grins, holding up the fork of roasted sugar. He bites back a laugh when he looks up. “Felix you’ve got a little something on your face.”

Felix shoots the boy a confused look before reaching up and finding a small spread of goopy sugar between his lips.

Peter turns and allows his own laughter to sustain as he jumps up and leans over the blowtorch. “Can I fix that?”

He doesn’t give his Boy a chance to answer before he’s closing his lips over the sticky residue. It’s an afterthought to not make the motion too sloppy as he sucks the molten sugar away.

They almost forget themselves, at least until Henry gives a muted little cough. When the look up,  he’s staring at the intricacies in the way his own golden marshmallow slides down the prongs of his fork.

Peter pulls away and it’s Felix who mumbles out a small “Sorry.”

Henry’s shrug looks nonchalant,, though he does look relieved to be able to look up again. “So, uh, how long have you two been together?”

“Forever,” Felix says, fingers drawing  absent circles on the small of Peter’s back.

“Or thereabouts.” Peter adds in, trying not to assess the realization they’d just finished each other’s thoughts.

The receive the news from word of mouth. From eavesdropping on a delicate conversation between the coquettish waitress and a scruffy grump of a man. Baelfire’s dead.

Felix takes the brunt of it, turning on his heels and slamming the door behind himself. Peter follows, if nothing else, to avoid making a bad situation worse through illness.

Peter wishes he hadn’t been oblivious to the situation, wishes he’d known what had become of both Baelfire and Rumplestiltskin. But he cannot pretend he’s too torn about it. Any and all affection he’d ever had for his grandson, if you could even call it that, had disappeared along with the boy’s true name.

Baelfire was a Lost Boy, Baelfire lived in Neverland, once a long time ago, Peter cared whether Baelfire lived or died. Neal Cassidy wasn’t applicable to any of it.

But Felix lives under the impression that once someone’s a Lost Boy, it means something forever.

Or, perhaps, it’s much simpler.

Felix and Baelfire were friends.

Sometimes Peter forgets how much that means to Felix.

And so they sit in silence. Felix has his legs crossed and tucked underneath himself. He’s swiping a pencil with a pocketknife, bringing it to a sharpness to rival needles.

Peter sits in the windowsill, watching the dreary funeral procession as it makes its way out of sight and then returns into town.

After a near hour of silence, Felix throws down the razor sharp pencil and pockets the knife before falling down under the blankets.

“I hate this place.”

Peter snorts somewhat indelicately, but comes around to sit beside Felix’s head on the bed. “Is this because of Baelfire or did you have an epiphany?”

“Both.”

It’s trying to walk around, emulating a brand of love and affection that wasn’t theirs. Hurtful to notice the way the traitors received nothing but good fortune for their abandonment. Irritating to bumble around here.

He closes his eyes and tries to imagine the heath-overflowed moors and jagged valleys back home. “I want Neverland.”

Peter hums, reclining on his elbows and lying down opposite Felix. “It was a step up from this, I’ll admit.”

Felix shuffles on the bed. “I want to go back - more than anything. Live forever and play your games. Not have to fake anything or label you and me as ‘True Love’ or whatever.  Get a new group of friends who won’t betray us. Just be. The way it’s supposed to be.” He’s breathing on Peter’s cheek now. Risks comforting proximity that may or may not be deemed too affectionate for Peter’s tastes. “Clear enough?”

“Let’s not get carried away just yet.” Peter nods, admitting how very agreeable it all sounds. “But perhaps once this all blows over.”

There is, of course, the question of immortality. A part of Peter, once he thinks on this, figures the limitation of his time on the island was the Shadow’s doing. Perhaps now that the Shadow is gone, the timeline has lost potency.

Felix was never under the hourglass's influence in the first place. Perhaps now that they’re symbiotes it won’t apply.

There has to be a way to return. He hasn’t allowed himself to think on it before this point, but now he has, he cannot deny it sounds idyllic.

“Back to Neverland,” He muses. “Mermaids’ blood on our hands, in your hair. Thrilling chases, exhilarating games. Getting anything we want.  Can’t imagine a life of anything else.”

Felix frowns, eyes open again. “How could anyone, after being there?”

Peter can tell Felix is thinking about Baelfire, about the others, can feel the tears starting in his stomach. But, as always, he doesn’t understand comfort, and so he slides under the covers and prompts Felix to lay his head down as well.

They slip into bed now, wordless. It calls memories of the island, when a Boy would walk into a patch of dreamshade, or off a cliff, or more notably, when Captain Hook had ripped a canyon into Rufio from navel to nose. It’s what Felix does when he loses someone: he gets quiet.

With nothing good to think about, Felix drifts off in minutes. He lies flat on his back, arms at his side; the paradigm of torn little soldier boys.

A sigh resting in his chest, Peter pulls on a pair of denims and presses the boundaries for how far they can get from each other now they’ve “patched things up.”

He makes it all the way down the stairs into the diner before he feels any discomfort at all, and even then it’s mild. Swinging around on a stool at the booth, he orders a coffee and gets the news a second time from a buisnesslike no-nonsense Granny.

He sips his coffee and keeps to himself. His hand flutters in a small wave when Henry notices him sitting there on his way through the door beside Hook.

Odd pair, but not worth thinking about right now.

Ordinary people are strange, Peter thinks. The majority of them couldn’t have known Baelfire. At least not personally, and nowhere close to the caliber he did. So why are they all blubbering?

He sees Aaron and both Ralph and Edwin at a table together. They make sense, though Peter can’t remember any of them chumming it with Baelfire.

It doesn’t make sense. Why shed tears  for someone that’s, respectively, inconsequential?

It’s around this point Peter realizes Rumplestiltskin isn’t here.

So, the Witch won’t even let him attend his own son’s funeral. But Peter still doesn’t want to think about the way Zelena’s treating him, and if nothing else, at least he’s alive and out of the line of fire. So it’ll have to do.

Speak of the devil, and she’ll appear, or so the adage goes.

Zelena saunters through the doors, wearing green and leather and a pointed hat. it’s a bit too on-the-nose, but if Peter’s going to start criticising the little things he’ll be here all night.

“My condolences,” She coos with moon-eyed malevolence that might be impressive if Peter were the type to be impressed.

She’s sauntering and smiling, brandishing Rumplestiltskin’s dagger in front of her. Stupid in throwing her pre-calculated victory in the townsfolk’s faces as they buckle and cow down.

And no sooner is an arrangement made, a fight between the Evil Queen and the Wicked Witch, than Peter slips back up the staircase. A moment more and he’s slamming the door to his room behind him.

“Wake up.” Peter shakes Felix’s shoulders until the boy jostles awake. “The shit’s about to hit the fan.”

 

 

It takes Felix all of two minutes to break into the Witch’s cellar that night. The whole town is on the street, in some alternate reality they never expected as they root for the Evil Queen.

There are two ways this can go. Either Zelena wins, and all hell breaks loose. Or Regina wins and buys them more time.

Either way, they’ve got to find a loophole or find a way to stop Zelena from changing the past.

The storm cellar’s dusty and smells like dirt, mold, and decaying rodents. Peter’s eyes latch onto the straw filled cage pressed against the far wall ,a  rickety stool and cracking spinning wheel.

“Someone isn’t playing nice,” Peter mutters as he steps inside the cage and kicks about in the straw.

Felix  rummages on the shelves amongst bottles and dusty books, trying to wipe away fingerprints. “Do you know what we’re looking for?”

Peter shakes his head and turns his attention to the shelves. “I doubt she’d keep the secret to time travel in here.”

Felix nods and moves to the stairs. “I’ll check the house.”

A hand reaches out and takes his forearm. Peter’s eyes are hard to make out in the dusty air. “Watch it now. She’s a devious bitch.”

“Understood,” Felix grunts. He takes a step onto the stairs and turns about again. “Besides, you’ll know if I get myself into a cage I can’t get out of.”

For a moment, Peter allows himself to smile before turning back to the shelves. “Meet you in the road. One hour unless she comes back.”

Picking locks is one of those things one, apparently, doesn’t forget. Felix makes it into the Witch’s house on his third attempt.

It’s odd, he thinks, how benign the bond has become over the year. Months ago, he would’ve been foaming and dry heaving, but now there’s barely even a slight tickle. He can carry on alone, not as fulfilled as he could be around Peter, but no longer empty. It’s unsettling, but somehow relieving to know he can still be his own person, even with True Love.

The main floor of the Witch’s farmhouse is mostly bare, sparsely decorated. Probably from the person who lived here before her. It’s unsurprising; she’s a bit of a cuckoo bird, in more ways than one. Taking over nests and lives, insane on general principle, pretty in a general sense but with an uncanny shiftiness that’s hard to ignore.  

He looks between couch cushions and under coffee tables, skims through bookshelves for something promising or hidden behind sleeves. Pulls on novels to see if there are any hidden rooms.

From the den and into the kitchen, he can’t find any leads. His sneakers squeak on the checkered tile and he wonders if she makes the monkeys do her housework. It’s an absurd thought, but something in it toys at Felix’s mind and he almost laughs.

Nothing hidden in the oven or breadbox (he recalls that sometimes in Camelot lovers would send each other notes by these means). Though there’s a recipe for pot pies hanging off the tall white ice box by a magnet.

Breaking and entering is something of an old skill. Peter occasionally sent him between realms, and that required a large skill set. But there’s something daunting in stepping through a witch’s personal space without any magical aid yourself. He can swallow it down though, duties surpass personal squeamishness. Always have and always will. Besides - he volunteered to be here.

With the ground floor glanced all over, he pads up the creeping stairs. There’s a grandfather clock at its head, and Felix sighs. He doesn’t have much time to look in the attic, but there’s enough to have a quick once through. If something’s there, he hopes it’s hidden in plain sight.

The attic is a small room, accented with wooden slats and dust flecks floating through the air.

He skims and darts over books in the shelves, drawers, chests, under the bed. Even knowing what to look for, his search still adds up to shit.

There's a wardrobe full to the brim of nothing and at its foot a chest flooded in sentimental keepsakes. Old dresses, tea soaked diaries, the handle to an expensive looking sword, an empty hat box.

There's nothing until he hears the monstrous screech outside the window. He recognizes the chatter: one of her damn monkeys.

Felix knows better than to stick around as long as  those monsters nearby. Or at least he tells himself when the discomfort creeps in. Still, there’s no point in thinking about it. He slinks down the stairs and out the back door, just as quiet and adept as he'd entered.

Peter is waiting for him in the street, feet straddling the dotted yellow line at its centre, hands swaying by his side "Well?"

"Nothing," Felix shakes his head and can't help but feel a twinge of guilt. He should've looked harder, been cleverer.

They have to duck under a bush a moment later, green smoke curling just before the cellar. The Witch is livid as she throws a dagger clenched hand towards the door. Felix can feel Peter gnaw on his cheek at the sight of Rumple's soulless parade in cooperation.

“So what now?” Felix mutters, trying to keep things calm in the wake of Peter's realization. He's bent on remaining calm, but it's hard not to notice the fury in the Witch’s gait as she shoves her slave down into the cellar.

“Back to the drawing board." Peter sighs, blinking away the scene. "Won’t be long now though. It can't be."

 

 

“I’m tired of waiting,” Peter sighs from his typical perch in the windowsill. “How hard can it be to stop one whiny little girl?”

“We could get hands-on,” Felix puts in, drying his hands on a towel and tossing it to the ground. “Try to help them.”  

But Peter only pulls a face. “It’s not the time just yet. Best wait till they get desperate enough to comply.”  

“I thought you said all you’d have to do was smile pretty and suck a few cocks?” Felix asks, a toying rise in his voice.

“Did I?” Peter shoots off the sill to stand closer to Felix at the underscored beating in his chest prompting him forward. “Do you think that’d work? It didn’t with you.”   

“I dont think you tried that.”

“Well I wasn’t going for _compliance_ with you, now was I?”  Peter leans in when Felix hums and lifts his head to hover over the warm, familiar skin and jumpstart their shared heartbeat. "I was shooting for something a bit more substantial."

It’s startling the ease at which they can talk about matters of forgiveness. Peter knows better than to think it’s all mended, never to be torn apart. Frayed knots are frayed, no matter the paste used to repair it.

Felix forgave him, but it’d be naive to think this means the clock has turned back and it’s the same as it was before. He’s still treading the line, still has to be careful lest Felix wake up one morning with a magic bean in one hand and a map of Camelot in the other.

And so, Peter swallows and allows himself to speak. He keeps his voice light, teasing, to soften the blow.  “You know, I don’t think I mind it. Sharing a heart with you. In fact, I think I’m starting to like it.”

“Starting?”

“You know what I meant.”

Felix quirks his mouth up, repeating a sentence that somehow stuck to the both of them over the months. “How disgustingly romantic.”

“Shut up,” Peter slaps Felix on the chest but darkens his voice on a dare to press this any further. Felix is enough of a pacifist when it comes to Peter to drop the subject. Although he keeps his wry grin as he presses his fingers between Peter’s chin and tugs him in.

They’ve kissed so much since Felix came back, it might just rival the three centuries they’d had before this. It’s snappish and rough, familiar but still crackling a certain static air of youth and excitement making each kiss wind them up and unravel them  at the same time.

It takes no time to slam Felix against the windowpanes, his knee teases between Felix's thighs and his breath clogs the air.

Peter wriggles out of the hole in his shirt and turns it into a blindfold, tripping Felix in the flurry of material as they stumble and tug at each other.

It's a wrestling match, aggressive and staggering. Teeth and tongue poised for battle, arms ready to fly, legs melt into something viscous stumbling to keep themselves up and subdue the other.

And the whole time they can't stop the stupid grins.

A horribly homesick feeling settles next, though things hadn’t been quite so lighthearted on the island.

Next thing Felix knows, he's falling face down onto the mattress, Peter pinning him down with his arms and knees.

"I win," He whispers in something between a friend and braggart, sinking his teeth into Felix's ear.

Felix allows a minute sound to escape his lips as he bucks his hips. He ticks into the way Peter's hands have already fixated on the pull in his zip and he trails he's leaving on the back of his neck with practiced tongue.

There's a tickle in his stomach, stimulated by the reciprocal feeling in Peter's. Much as he doesn't want to admit it'll be so easy, but in a few short moments Felix knows he'll be raging and needy and damn close to falling apart. And Peter, damn him, isn't even able to use magic right now.

He twists his neck and instigates a kiss at the same time Peter shinnies his denims off his hips. He’s plucking at his waistband, taking his own sweet time in removing the garment--

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

They both groan for an entirely different reason than otherwise instigated, and Peter sinks back onto his flank, glaring at the door.

"We've gone this long without interruptions, it's high time really."

"Ignore them," Felix mutters, rolling onto his back and extending a hand out to Peter.

"Oh come on, it won't take long. Might be fun." Peter decides for them and stands to see the intruder at the door. "Stay put."

He twists the glass doorknob and finds himself facing a rather wide-eyed brunette boy.

Henry pulls away, jostling the paper bags in his arms at the sight of both boys in undone jeans and without shirts. "Is this a bad time?"

"A bit, yeah."

Eyes dart away, and he's turning an interesting color. "I'll just come back later."

Peter risks to step out in the doorway. "Well you already interrupted, might as well say what you wanted to."

Felix comes up behind him now, a shoddy underhanded toss returns Peter's shirt and once they're considered "decent," invite Henry into the room.

"What brings you here?" Felix asks, swiping a hand to calm the locks of hair Peter'd messed up.

“Right," Henry sets his brown paper bag on the bed and fishes out a clunky black box. "There isn't too much here but I found this. And," He reached in again to take out  a slim case of vibrant and bulbous cartoons. "I found Mario Kart. And snacks."

They look to the tiny television in their room, and Peter gives a small shrug, permitting Henry to plug in various wires to get the black box to work.

"So it's a game?" Felix asks as the start screen blurs in color and bulbous vehicles and characters.

Henry turns to him incredulously. "You've never played Mario Kart?"

Felix shakes his head and Peter chimes in, "Neither have I. But how hard can it be?" He grabs a purple handheld device and grips it in both hands. "Come on then, let's play."

The game - a sort of racing simulation - wasn’t difficult to learn, though Peter questioned its entertainment value. The screen bleats a tune that’s obnoxious at best and the pictures dancing in front of them were far too bright and fast. Though Peter would never back down from a game, pressing the little joystick forward even as the corners of his brain started to throb.

“You’re getting a headache,” Felix mutters after this has gone on for a while, keeping his eyes stationed on the TV. “Do you want to lie down?”

“Not till I beat you.”

"You might wanna be more worried about beating me," Henry says, red string of licorice between his grin. 

They go a few more races, Henry winning all of them, before Felix has to put his own controller down from the secondhand pounding against his temples.

“Peter needs a break.” He mutters, opening a bag of Doritos and exchanges the controller in Peter’s hand for the chips. When Peter pulls the controller back, he sighs, “It isn’t helping anyone. Don’t make me muddle through it.”

A loud sigh and the exchange of items between hands and Peter sinks against the footboard. “All right. Fine.”

It’s a minute later when they notice the strange look in Henry’s eyes.

“Do you read each other’s minds or something?”

Peter snorts, pulling a pillow over his eyes to banish the light. “You’d be surprised.”  

 

 

Perhaps it’s a repercussion of immortality, but every relationship Felix has ever had has fallen to shit at one point or another. For some, such as the Boys, indifference makes it unforgivable. For some, such as Peter, forgiveness came like dawn.

However, no relationship had ever fallen apart as horrifically as with Captain Killian Jones.

It was never good from the start, always caustic and mistrusting, but any scrap of civility was ripped apart along with Rufio, hundreds of years ago.

So, when Felix peered out the window and sees Jones shepherding Henry away from Emma’s yellow bug, the suspicions that arise are understandable.

It’s also understandable when he and Peter head out the door, follow quietly down to the docks. With the distance they had to keep to avoid being seen, it was impossible to overhear exactly what transpired between the captain, his first mate, and their cursed Believer, at least until the whole group grew distracted, staring wide eyed up to the clouds.

Felix squints and tries to make it out, nerves stammering as he makes out the rather distinctive sound of flapping wings.

Jones shouts out, “Now!” and the three run away. Felix and Peter stay put however, eyes growing and joint pulse skyrocketing as they make out the distinctive silhouette of the entire damn troop diving in the sky, diving and giving chase to the captain, his buffoon, and a confused little boy.

Felix groans. “I hate monkeys.”

“I know you do.”

“Any ideas?”

“Seven.”

Peter kneels down and rounds a collection of snow in his palms, breaks off an icicle and plants it in the middle. Without magic, it’s the best they can manage, and Felix is beside him in a second.

A large portion of the monkeys are already swarming the boathouse like bees in a hive, slamming on the windows and screeching out.

It’s less than adequate ammunition, they hardly manage to do more than slow a few of the monkeys down. Peter’s dying to use an enchantment, but judging by the way he shakes his ankle, it’s already burning him.

They’ve made it halfway across the lawn, fingers numb and covered in snow, tossing ice-hardened bombardments up to the creatures, when the first gunshot sounds.

Felix throws a snowball that manages to down one of the beasts, knocking it on its head, it screeches and tumbles into the harbor.

They’re close enough by this point to hear a shot, a screech, and Jones shout, “No!”

Peter’s eyes dart to the boathouse momentarily, until the next gunshot. There’s a hurricane of spitting wet fur, a screech, and then

_“Peter!”_

Felix is tossing underneath an enormous beast of freezing fur and glass-shattering cries. The monkey’s wings flap, trying to hoist him into the sky, but Felix flails enough for the goal to be unattainable.

Peter’s on its back in a second. He’s beaten back against the terrible wings, ignoring the gale it’s blowing into his face. Icicles poke through his face like little needles, but he can only see red as the monkey is gnashing its teeth and brandishing its claws against Felix who’s laid on his back with nothing but elbows and fragile human hands.

There’s snapping. A thin stream of blood, and Peter grabs a beating wing, struggling to hold it still, and slams it on his knee. The bone creeks and the monkey flies back. Needle-sharp nails, aimed for Peter’s throat, but curls over in a fit of pain. It beats its body against Felix, twisting his body into an inhuman curve.

The wing that still has prowess slaps against Peter’s face and he can already feel the bruise as he fights against the wind and flea-ridden creature.

It isn’t long after the gunshots stop that Peter’s decided enough is enough. His eyes flash dark as he fists the monkey’s thrashing head, pulling it back and off Felix’s struggling form.

Felix slides in the snow as way of retreat before unfolding his own pocket knife and brandishing it from his knees.

Peter presses the blade to the creature’s throat. “Are you one of them who knows what you’re doing?”

The creatures thrashes, bleats its broken wing, and swings a paw at Felix.

“Pity. This would’ve been more fun if you could,” Peter hisses and forces the blade through layers of fur. He slits its throat in a second, and rather than bleeding, the creature disappears into orange flame before fizzling out.

Felix has three open wounds sliced through his face, intersecting his current scar. HIs lips is split open and his arm hangs oddly off his shoulder. Peter’s got windburn to last a week, a bruise on his cheek, and a sprain in his wrist.

“You okay?” Felix mutters, taking another step as the cold sinks into his cold bones.“I don’t think I could live off a quarter of a heart.”

Peter pulls a face, “Some objectivity would be nice right now.”

“First you want optimism, then imagination, and now objectivity.” Felix drawls, pricking Peter’s lips with a short kiss, “Won’t you ever make up your mind?”

Peter’s mouth opens to answer, just as a warm light and sweeping magic washes over them, knocking them back, sliding over the snowy ground.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Looks like they finally broke the curse.”  Despite the freezing setting deep into Peter’s skeleton, he manages to place a grin that’s somewhere in a spectrum between relieved and in pleased anticipation. “Time to come out and play.”

They take their time crossing into the boathouse, shaking the frosting water off their clothes and wiping blood away. Felix uses skills perfected after hundreds of years in Neverland to snap his arm back into place. Peter wasn’t expecting it and he jolts in the pain but says nothing, somehow understanding the intention behind the sudden unpleasantry.

Peter risks a burst of magic to open the doors to the boathouse for sportive grandeur. He stumbles when his anklet starts to burn, but saunters in as though it were just a gnat.

At the sight of the two of them entirely lacking of that soppy facade they’d been wearing, everyone in the shack jumps to attention. Regina steps directly in front of Henry, puffed up and snarling as a precaution. David stands, sword brandished.  Mary Margaret’s plump fists strain, Jones stands at the ready with Emma just a pace in front of him, hand on her gun.

“Now that you’ve all got your memories back,” Peter takes a few confident steps forward, Felix right off his heels, “I suppose we can stop pretending  now. Shame. We all know how much I like my games.”

“I knew it,” Regina spits, throwing up her arms to conjure up sharp flames. She growls when Pan cocks a brow.

“Mom, wait.”

There isn’t a soul in the room - including Peter and Felix - who doesn’t turn to Henry in some form of shock.

“Let’s hear them out.” He says, entirely serious. “What’s the harm in listening?”

“He took your heart,” Regina says, flames extinguished from her talons but not from her voice.

“Obviously that’s not a very permanent thing with Pan,” Henry shuffles his feet. “I mean, Felix is here.”

Felix tilts his head; there’s something of a novelty in being used as an alibi, but he can’t say he minds. At least not until viewing the rocky glares from the others in the rickety building.

“Smart boy,” Peter comments, eyes flicking towards Henry.

“Okay, we’ll listen,” Emma says, hands on her waist if only to get closer to her gun should she need it. “So start talking.”

“It’s simple enough. We want Zelena to fail. You haven’t been up to snuff. High time our heros call in for reinforcements, don’t you think?”

“Why would we trust you?” Regina draws her face tight, still forming a bulwark between Henry and the eternal youths.

“Because we all want the Wicked Witch to fail.” Peter shrugs lightly. “Enemy of my enemy and all that.”

“Wait, why do you want that?” Mary Margaret asks, head tilted in curiosity.

“She’s right. What would you be getting out of it?” Emma frowns through her words.

“Domino effect,” Peter waves his hand, uninterested in the mechanics.

Felix steps forward and divulges his logic to them. How, without the Evil Queen rising to power, ultimately Henry won’t be born either.

“So you still want his heart.” Regina bares her teeth, arm protectively around her son who, unless Peter’s getting carried away in his thoughts, is squirming, just a little.

“No. I’m beyond that. New priorities” Peter scoffs. “Besides, I’m quite content with what’s in my own chest right now.”

“Then why does any of this matter to you?” David asks, using intonations a bit nicer and still overly defensive than the women.

Peter rubs his temples, giving a show of being quite perturbed indeed. Felix steps in. “We want to be certain the timeline stays static. We want to end up here.”

“There’s something unsavory afoot,” Hook says, “There were both dead.”

And the two boys quirk a smile that’s nearly identical, sift their heads to face each other. They’re silent a beat, communicating amongst each other before Peter turns to them.

“That’s entirely our business.” He sighs. “None of yours.”

“All right then,” Regina takes a step forward, still directing Henry to stand behind her. “This isn’t working. So answer this: What could we possibly gain from having you with us?”

To this, Peter grins. “Time moves differently in Neverland. Because of that I’ve got a couple hundred years on Rumple when it comes to magic. Imagine how much time I’ve got on you.  I can do things with just one lovely little thought that you can’t even _dream_ of. And, unlike you and everyone else here,” He bats his eyes but sneers to reveal teeth that look almost like fangs. “I’m not domesticated.”

“Which isn’t helping your case, mate.” Jones mutters.

“Yeah, Hook’s got something,” Emma says. “There’s got to be more going on here - so spill.”

Regina inserts herself: “And I’m not buying that you don’t still want Henry.”

“Oh don’t be clever,” Peter snaps. “It always makes everyone so stupid. I’m not a mercenary, I don’t have an allegiance. All we want is to make sure we end up here. You know - make sure your son is born. Or does that not matter to any of you?”  

There’s a pause, an odd look shared between the majority of the crowd.

Regina: “Don’t pretend you care about him.”

“My feelings for the boy aren’t of any consequence. In fact, the only thing that matters is that I want to help you take the jealous bitch down.” Peter’s feeling a flick of irritation in the repetition. Why can’t people just listen?  “And, as though my mere presence isn’t enough, I’ll remind you: I don’t fail. And frankly you lot need the luck.”

Regina shakes her head. “We don’t need your help. After what you did to Henry, after you started the curse--”

Everyone notices the way Felix’s shoulders stiffen at the word, but the oddity at the scene lies in how Peter pivots over his feet, stupidly turning his back to the others. It seems like he whispers something, but no one can hear. Felix raises his eyes momentarily, and gives a little nod.

Peter turns back, “Let’s not use the c-word, shall we?”  

It’s before anyone can respond, and Felix takes a few steps forward, surprising even Peter. “We are both able and willing to be assets for the time being. We lived in the Witch’s castle for that year and know her better than you. If Pan can’t convince you, let me.”

Regina scoffs. “And why should we listen to one of his brainwashed henchmen?”

Felix snarls and opens his mouth, Peter hisses as magic flares and the tether turns white hot on his leg, but Henry beats them to the punch.

“He isn’t brainwashed.” Henry takes a few steps forward, turning his head between his two mothers.

“Look,” Emma says turning entirely to her son. “It happens more than you’d think. Thought reform. It happens all the time in cults--”

Henry shakes his head, holds his hands in his pockets. “It wasn’t a cult.”

Emma frowns. “I know you like to see the best in people; but Pan killed him and he’s still here--”

“How _did_ you do it?” Mary Margaret waddles in towards the tense half-circle they’ve formed, bringing in the question that begged to be asked. “Come back?”

Peter tries to shake it off, only to be interrupted by “ _And Felix?_ ”

“That’s right,” Regina says, “You had to rip out his heart.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “I replaced it.”

“How?”

“Another thing that is entirely our business. I’m afraid that if you’re expecting something big and grand - you’ll be disappointed. “

“I can infer.” Regina’s nails dig into her hip in a way that reminds Peter shockingly of her big sister. “You replaced his heart, and that means you had to take someone else’s. He wouldn’t still be following you so blindly without his heart getting in the way. There has to be some sort of control involved.”

Peter cocks his brow, around the same time Felix slides up between Peter and their adversaries nearest an upturned boat and says, “Shrewd. But no.”

“What do you mean, ‘no?’”

Felix smirks. “Try again.”

Charming mumbles beside his wife. “There had to be a transaction of some kind.”

“And it’s all in the past. And considering our main objective is to stop that from happening, let’s just not worry about it.” Peter fiddles against the tips of his fingernails, tearing into the cuticle.

“Cut the crap and just tell us,” Emma’s losing patience.

“It’s personal--”

“So is trust.”

Peter laughs, a sharp mocking snicker in bolts from one end of the shack to the other. “Look; we want the same thing. We might as well be working together. But I’m not after redemption or forgiveness or trust. Not from an Evil Queen, nor a Savior, nor expectant parents,” He spits the last two words like acid.

“Peter’s a bit stubborn,” Felix offers a complacent look to the glare Peter shoots him as he turns to fce the heroes. “So I’ll tell you.”

“Well then by all means.” Regina opens her hands to invite the explanation, though her face doesn’t seem all that willing.

“It’s his.” Felix says evenly, narrows his eyes when they group doesn’t seem to understand. “The heart. He gave me half--”

He drops off abruptly at the tidal swell of reaction to his confession. Mary Margaret and David host identical gapes directed at each other and flicking back to the boys before them. Emma’s blinking and sweeping a glance back to her parents. Regina’s ice cold stare hasn’t softened, but perhaps grown confused, or at least lost partial edge.  The Captain’s eyes have gone down, a habit of his when he’s forced to think sober.  Henry’s beaming.

Felix frowns and turns back to Peter. “Did I say something?”

“Yeah,” Henry pipes, stepping forward, creating a wide enough berth to skirt any attempts Regina might have in keeping him from meandering too close to the boys. “That’s exactly what Mary Margaret and David did.”

“True Love magic,” Mary Margaret muses quietly.

Peter opens his mouth to ask, or perhaps to disregard, but Henry’s already turned back to his family.

“I think we should trust them.” Henry shifts a bit on his feet and then continues,  “They’ve got True Love, don’t they? They can’t be all bad.”

Regina steps forward. “Henry, it’s a bit more complicated--”

“It worked for you.”

It’s probably the first time either of them have seen the Evil Queen speechless, and it’s something of a sight to see.

“Besides,” He amends the catty tone he’d accidentally taken on. “I thought we were all about second chances.”

 

Perhaps it’s odd, in its own right, how they were sent on their way so quickly. Peter’d been expecting a little more of a third degree. Though perhaps that was a thing about being a hero - you trust too easily.

Henry went with Emma and his grandparents to stop at Baelfire’s - Neal’s - grave. Felix half wanted to take the opportunity himself, now all was said and done, to give his own respects. But it wasn’t the time.

And so, they head back to Granny’s, something that’s become disgustingly typical, and order large steaming cappuccinos in attempt to get the ice out of their bones.

Everyone’s buzzing, it’s impossible to hear themselves think as they tap their fingers in an erratic percussion against the ceramic mugs.

Now the missing year is remembered, there isn’t a soul in the vicinity who isn’t yapping and hollering, collecting the memories of those they lost, for what reasons, and of bridges burnt and alliances made. There’s a constant thrum about ‘the Witch’ and the word laced with fear.

She’d, apparently, been quite a busy girl in that year.

Felix is turning around over himself, looking out the window on the street, in secluded corners, everywhere for former friends. And Peter understands. It’s high time he give them a piece of his mind, if for nothing else than closure.

He’s not angry right now; he’s curious and nearly distraught. Perhaps that’ll change once Felix has a tangible body to shove around and yell at.

Peter doesn’t see the point, personally. They got out of the game; good for them. It’ll serve them ill in the end - they have no living family, at least not most of them. They’re stuck in a band together, just like in Neverland, but in a place full of cold and responsibility and having to spend each day getting a little older. They’ll regret it, and it’ll be too late. That’s all the closure Peter needs.

But Felix took their betrayal a bit more personally, and for that, he understands. If Felix needs to smack them black and blue, that’s exactly what he’ll do.

Felix starts for a moment, whipping back around to the bar.  The change become clear as he grabs his prepaid cell phone and presses it to his ear. “Henry?”

Peter wipes a small trail of foam from his upper lip and leans in an attempt to eavesdrop on the conversation. It’s useless: the diner is too crowded.

Felix continues: “What do you mean now?” 

There’s a pause and Felix jumps to his feet, ticking his head to Peter to follow. Peter promptly takes the lead without knowing where they’re going.

“Okay, okay, okay. We’re coming.” He hangs up and clumsily replaces the box in his pocket. He points to the hospital and looks up to Peter. “Baby’s on its way.”

Peter hardly gets out a grumbling “I hate that sentence” before they’re moving along quite briskly in the wintry roads. The double doors are heavy, but pushed open easily despite the glares from the dwarves standing outside.

Inside, it's just as busy at the diner. Apart from nurses in white and pincurls bustling between paitents, a group of large burly men make out the majority of the waiting room, settling arrows onto strings and formulating a plan in hushed tones.

They can hear the muffled cries in the next room over, Mary Margaret’s anguished peals. For a moment, Peter looks like he’s going to be sick.

Felix is about to inquire, but the Evil Queen gets to them before he can.

“What are you doing here?”

“Henry called us.”

She sucks in her blood red lips and tosses a hand slightly as though it’s a habit. “Fine. Take upstairs in case she goes for a window or sends in the monkeys or flies in or something.”

Felix starts to move, but Peter stays put. “Well I’ll need something for defensive won’t I? Take it off,” He extends his leg with the shimmering anklet on it.

“Not a chance.”

“And how do you intend for me to fight anything?”

Regina waves her hand, and a dark cloud appears. Moments later, a crossbow materializes in his hand. Smooth oak, long narrow arrow that’s light as the air. A dark raven’s feather at the end of the shaft.

“Hope you’re a good shot,” She says, waves her hand again and a long winding scythe appears in Felix’s hands, and a dagger at his belt. “Now head upstairs.”

They oblige, mockingly trotting up the stairs; marveled at the inability for the reformed to appreciate an attempt to play nice.

Usually before battle, there’s a calm before the storm. But, right now, everything is a frenzied haze. People running to lock down the hospital, hoarding posts nearest the doors and windows. Peter and Felix stand sentry to a picture window on an upper floor, far away from Henry and the agony of the woman giving birth.

You win some, you lose some.

It’s uneasy silence on their floor once the buzzing dies down.

And now they wait.

Peter’s preoccupying himself by sparking his fingertips, flinching and wincing as the anklet turns white hot. He recoils for a moment before trying again.

Felix grunts at the latent pain, sitting himself just below the window against a potted fern. “It won’t stop hurting just because you keep doing it.”

“Maybe I’ll go numb,” Peter mumbles, clearly without inclination of stopping.

“I won’t.”

Peter sighs and slides onto the bright tile beside Felix. “Fine.”

“Wounding yourself before battle,” Felix mutters, head up against the wall and shutting his eyes. “Sound familiar to you?”

“I was making us uncomfortable because I’m curious. Rumple crippled himself because he’s an idiot. Hardly comparable.” He can’t tell the face Peter’s pulling, but it’s easy enough to guess. “But that would be our pattern.”

“Indeed.”

The silence grows in the next moment, not uncomfortably. Rubber bottoms of shoes skid on the waxed linoleum, radiators hum in attempt to keep the halls warm enough for passing patients. Sound travels off the hard floors and walls and they can hear Emma and Regina preparing for all hell to break loose.

It’s almost a familiar feeling, and if they just had a whiff of jungle air or the salty spray of the sea on their cheeks, they might be able to get into it.

A bell sounds down the hall at the elevator. Peter doesn’t look up, but he knows what he’s about to see when he feels Felix’s insides clench up as he rises to his feet in a slow, threatening motion. Swaying like a shark.

Aaron stops, startled. He sifts his weight, looks down at the ground as is his habit.

He shrinks a bit as Peter rises to stand off Felix’s shoulder. It’s almost boggling to have Felix standing in front of Peter, something he’d never witnessed before.

But the befuddlement can’t last long, as Peter presses up on his toes and whispers something that he cannot hear, but in the next moment the immortal demon is passing him, juvenilely bumping his shoulders as he passed.

“What are you doing here, Aaron?”

“Marmaduke got inta a little accident. Had to stay overnight. But you know him.”

“I did.”

“Right.” Aaron sighs and scratches the back of his neck. “I heard you got your memories back - or never lost them - or whatever.”  

“Never lost them.”

“Oh. Okay. Good.” Aaron shuffles. “We’re glad you’re alive. We all are.”

“Excuse me if I don’t believe that,” Felix mutters, eyes gone dark and metallic in ways they hadn’t been in months.

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“You all betrayed Pan - and me - and everything we ever had. And all for a lie of a home you’re not gonna get anyway. Some adult holds something shiny in front of your faces and it’s high treason. And none of you cared.”

Aaron swallows. “Didn’t you ever get lonely at night? It wasn’t worth it. Don’t you think?”

“No. Pan gave us everything. And you turned your back. Everyone did. And for a home that won’t even exist anymore.”

“We’re doing okay--”

“But it’s still just you boys. You and nobody else. So why turn your back on everything?”

“It isn’t just us.” Aaron takes a step forward, perhaps recognizing something in his, at least former, friend's face that helps him drop timidness. “Some of us joined the Merry Men. Some of us were adopted. Nibs actually is a live-in babysitter for Cinderella. We’ve got families. We’re doing okay.”

“I wish you weren’t.”

“No you don’t.”

Felix stops. He won’t entertain the thoughts, and instead lowers his voice. “You wanna bet?”

“Felix, you’re the biggest sap I know.” Aaron guages the look on Felix’s face and amends himself. “We wanted a home. You wouldn’t go. It’s nothing personal, man.”

“You know, for the past year, I’ve wanted nothing more than to strangle all of you traitors. Benevolent punishment for treason.” He snickers as Aaron inches backwards. “But, the longer I think about it, the less I want to extend you the courtesy.”

Felix sighs: “You didn’t even look at me on that damn ship. No apology after ruining my life. I cleaned your goddamn bandages for centuries and not one of you even checked to see if I was okay.”

“You would’ve hit us.”

“And I would’ve been justified.”

“It wasn’t about you. It was about wanting to find a home.”

“And you took mine. Let them take Pan down. After hundreds of years, Aaron; and none of you have an ounce of loyalty.”

“Pan killed people--”

“ _You_ killed people. Don’t use that as an excuse.”

Aaron wings his hands together. “I get you’re mad. But we’re all doing okay here. You could too. Do you want to, I don’t know, just go in and see Marmaduke or something?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Worth a try,” Aaron shrugs.

Peter rounds the corner now, shoves the crossbow into Aaron’s hands. “If you’re here you might as well put something in.”

Aaron blinks.

“The Witch is after Snow White’s baby. Fill in the blanks.” Peter mutters irritably.

“How do you intend to fight anything without a weapon, Peter?” Felix asks expression softening as Peter comes and stands near.

“Magic.”

“But the pain--” Felix objects.

Peter tosses his eyes and digs in his pocket for a small orange cylinder. “Lifted this off a nurse. Supposed to be good for pain. Vicodin, it’s called.”

Aaron skitters, nervous as Peter’s presence solidifies, and perhaps confused in the oddity of the situation. But there isn’t much time to go anywhere or find closure. A clang and a shout of " _The Witch is here!"_  from down the stairs, bounding off the linoleum floors.

As though rehearsed, that same blood-curdling screech rakes through the sky. Peter only has enough time to look out the window to see the flecks of brown fur hurdling towards the hospital, some circling like vultures, and some coming closer, spinning and screeching on flea-bitten wings.

They hit the deck. Felix throws an instinctive hand on the back of Peter’s neck, Aaron curls into a corner.

The monkeys are louder, and the crawl in through the open window, snapping their jaws and pumping their wings. Creating a tempest in the hall.

One of the creatures jumps on Peter, clawing and ferocious. A burst of screaming magic and the creature falls back. Felix is on it in a second, bashing its eyes into its skulls with the butt of his scythe.

“Those’re people!” Aaron muddles, aiming his bow for one of their wings.

“Doesn’t matter!” Peter calls, biting his lip to muddle the flames that engulf his stomach as he pins a creature to writhe on the ceiling.

There are more monkeys. Snarling and snapping and knocking them back with their wings, blowing in the freezing wintry air.

The hall smells like blood and shit and moldy fur, only slight undertones of the chemicals and medicines of the hospitals. Their ears fill with unearthly screeches and teeth and talons scrape and cut into flesh.

A monkey calls and jolts off the wall, pushing off and soaring across the hall. It tumbles to the ground, taking a tall body they hadn’t yet accounted for yet

Henry’s standing to the side, face white as he watches his psychologist suffer the erratic swings of an enchanted primate.

Felix shoves him back into the corridor at the same time Aaron shoots the creature in the wing and Peter suspends it in air. The doctor lies still, but there isn’t much time to account for it, as the monkeys pound their chests and create a wall, baring their teeth and flapping their wings.

Henry’s made his way around and opens a door to an empty patient's room, drags Dr. Hopper inside to take him out of the line of fire. He’s checking his pulse when Peter enters the room again. “Come on,” He says, impatient, grabbing Henry by the sleeve and tugging him out into the hallway.

Aaron is firing his bow when Peter pulls Henry back out, Peter snaps and winces and a cluster of arrows appear by the former Lost Boy’s head. Felix pivots on his feet and follows Peter and Henry as they quickly make their way down an opposite corridor.

They nearly pass the custodian’s closet with their pace, but Henry deviates from the path. “In here.”

Peter raises a brow at him, but, at the sound of another monkey screeching, Felix pounds between his shoulder blades and they all cram together in the space.

It’s a small closet that smells like ammonia and bleach. A lone lightbulb hangs off a string, giving an eerie butter-yellow light to the main vicinity of the room, still allowing whatever might be in the shadows to keep secret. There are mops and buckets and vacuums.

Felix leans in against the door, listening carefully for the creatures. Peter turns a bucket upside down and takes a seat while Henry situates himself on the floor.

Peter dabs his own forehead for a few moments, noticing and calculating the blood spatter before releasing a spell, a harsh flare in his and Felix’s stomachs, and healing the wounds.

They can’t hear the monkeys anymore, and Felix moves to open the door.

“No, wait.” Henry says. “We should probably stay for a little longer.”

“Why?” Peter cocks his brow and balances his elbows on his knees. “Don’t you want to fight with everybody else?”

“Uh,” Henry shifts nervously. “I’m supposed to wait until it’s safe.”

“You might be under practiced, but I’m sure you can handle this on your own.” Peter says. “Just a handful of bloody primates.”

“Easy to say when they’re not tearing at you.” Felix mutters, crossing his ankles as he leans against the door.

“My point,” Peter turns to glare emptily at Felix before turning back to the younger boy on the floor. “Is that you’re capable of so much more than what they let you do.”

“Well she did try to strangle me,” Henry twiddles his thumbs in his lap. “I don’t really mind keeping my distance.”

“How’re you supposed to be a hero if they don’t let you learn?” Peter scoffs.

“What makes you think I’m gonna be a hero?” Henry isn’t challenging him, isn’t sportive. He’s just curious.

“Your lineage. ‘S obvious enough you’ll fall under one of the two extremes.” Peter sighs. “And you’re definitely better versed in heroics.”

Henry smiles, soft and pensive. His eyes draw to the side for a bit, lost in thought.

Felix bites the side of his cheek, calculating his wordage. Once the silence draws on for a good long while, he speaks.

“Why did you defend us?”

“Huh?” Henry gives a minute shake to his head, a slight narrow to his eyes.

“At the boathouse. You defended us. Believed us in spite of everything that happened.” Felix keeps his face still, shirks away any attempted emotion pressing through. “Why?”

Henry shrugs. “I could tell you meant it.”

“What do you mean by that?” Felix, perhaps a bit gruff from his exchange with the former lost one, would rather not deal in vague right now. And for some reason, the particulars are important.

“When Peter went to cast the cur--I mean, when he tried to take over,” Henry offers an apologetic look towards Felix before continuing. “There was something wrong. He went completely berserk…”

Felix’s eyes flash to Peter, who’s lifted one leg onto the bucket beside him, absently drawing on his knee. He looks entirely nonchalant, but Felix can feel the flush underneath it all.

Henry goes on and explains to Felix how there obviously was something wrong, how Pan seemed to abandon all of his own rules. How he looked unwell and wasn’t at all acting like himself. How, when he woke up in his own body, he was slumped against the well staring at the corpse.

And Felix can’t break his eyes away from Peter. He can’t stop watching Peter fruitlessly try to break the trace on his anklet only to give him something to do.

Henry finishes. “It was almost kamikaze.”

“What’s that?” Felix says, still not looking the young boy in the eye in favor of watching Peter, who’s only just getting around to matching the contact.

“Suicide mission.” Henry clarifies. “And, besides, it’s different now.”

“How?” This time, it’s Peter to speak up. He dislikes being dressed down like this, but somehow he likes the second hand feeling pooling in his stomach. He can’t put a name to what Felix is feeling, but it’s pleasant to say the least.

“You went from tearing my heart out for yourself, to taking yours for him. That’s kinda huge, don’t you think?”

Felix sucks on his own tongue for a moment, lips curling up for only half a moment before shifting his gaze between Peter and Henry respectively. Peter jostles on the bucket, uncomfortable in the sentimentality in the matter, but somehow reassured.

“Besides.” Henry finishes. “We were friends there, for a little while. Weren’t we?”

Felix abandons the door and steps into the room, turns a bucket over himself and squats down beside Peter. He’s far too gangly for it to be comfortable unless he were to try and stretch out, but he slumps over himself and considers the statement. Then, he turns back to Henry. “Yeah.”

 

 

Peter’s decided he doesn’t like to be apart from the action. It’s grating to step out of the Clorox-infused janitor’s closet with nothing more than  _“Yes, Regina defeated Zelena and she’s in prison now. The surviving monkeys are humans again. Snow White had a son. And it is forty degrees fahrenheit outside now and there’s a warm front moving in. Thanks for playing.”_

Perhaps if he’d had a chance to actually do anything, the dramatics would be easier to swallow.

Though precious little could make this easier.

The chime above the door sounds like a death march as he presses his way into the pawnshop, Felix pacing close enough at his heels to feel whole again.

Rumple, all put together again after the influence of Zelena’s power, seems well. Although it’s hard not to seem such when one has their tongue down another’s throat. Peter almost laughs at the uneasy clench in Felix’s stomach. He manages to keep it together, at least enough to mockingly bring his hands together in applause to separate the two.

“Well, well,” Peter smiles bright, stepping forward into the room as Felix leans in against the door. “Isn’t this...a _dor_ able. Glad to see you took my advice, laddie. Though you had a roundabout way of doing it.”

Rumplestiltskin’s eyes flash. For a second his scales almost appear. “Leave us.”

“Oh, don’t you want to hear my side of the story?” He’s mocking, though there is something odd underlying the typical impishness. “Why don’t you let your lovely fiancee fill in the blanks from while you were away?”

Belle’s frown is a thin line. Tight and drawn in. Peter can half admire her stubbornness.

“Not interested.” Rumple says. “Now get out.”

But Peter only clicks his tongue and paces along the stacks of ancient merchandise. His eyes skid momentarily on the dagger in Belle’s hand, noting the way it distinctly lacks the hum of magic. There’s a shift to his face as he looks at the lettering, and Belle draws it in closer to herself.

“You can’t have it.”

“Don’t want it,” Peter says, as though bored. Then he turns to Rumple, “But I do need a bit of magic from you, laddie.”

“What - on earth - makes you think I’d help you?”

"Because I know a con when I see one," Peter’s urbane grin is begins and ends on his lips, his voice made of silk, and Felix examines his face closely, trying to read the card up his sleeve. “And in return for helping me, I can tell you what’s real in this shop of yours -- and what’s not.”

Rumple turns white. Felix thinks he looks something like a fish on the end of a hook.

“And of course,” Peter nears the front desk, “Belle deserves to know, too. After all, this shop is half hers now, isn’t it?”

“What do you want?”

Smirking, Peter lifts his leg up onto the display case. It’s almost up to his waist and, given the example of flexibility, he turns to face Felix at the door and gives a quick wink before rolling up the sleeve on his leg to expose the enchanted chain.

He describes the downsides of the enchanted piece as concisely as possible before giving a waving gesture to his ankle. “I want it gone.”

“And what will you do with it gone?” Belle asks.

“I’m a lot of things,” Peter says. “But stupid isn’t one of them. I’m not about to try to take over the town. Won’t even kill anyone unless they really piss me off. But the chain needs to go.”

Belle starts to protest, but before she can make out an intelligible sentence, Rumple waves his hand over Peter’s foot and the chain disappears.

“There you go. Not quite so painful.” Peter slides his leg back to the floor and shakes a bit as though the trace was cutting off his circulation.

“Get out.” Rumple bites the moment it’s done.

But Peter tuts, tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth. “So hostile. Though, it’s easy to hate people who remind you of yourself. Perhaps I shouldn’t take it so personal.”

“I kept my end.”

“And I’m not going against mine,” Peter sighs. “It’s quite...unexpected you’d remember how to play.”

Lips turned up, he conjures up a simple playing card. No design on the back. On the front, the Queen of Spades stares up - the woman’s face plain and just edging on ugly.

He edges towards the door, stepping in the frame and pressing his lips together as he turns back to the two adults in the room. For the first time in months, he meets eyes with his son.

“Just remember. Don’t back yourself into a cage you can’t get out of,” He keeps his voice even. “You never were a lucky one, Rumple.”

There’s nothing else to say, even though this might just be their last meeting. And Peter steps directly the street with Felix right by his side,who doesn’t ask what happened, but somehow understands all the same.

 

They made their way back to their room at Granny’s that evening. As usual, the clothes came flying off before the door latched in its frame.

Perhaps it’s because of closure, or perhaps it's irritation with not getting to actually make waves in this small town, they were rougher than they had been recently. Felix kept his face pressed into the mattress,  his hands fisted in the cotton sheets. Peter above him, using one hand to keep him hard, a leg to jostle his knees apart and up, and maintaining the most intensity and fervor he could manage now that he finally has magical assistance again.

By the time it’s over, they’re both more exhausted than they should be. Peter pulls out druggedly slow, forehead resting in the sticky sweat collecting in the valley between Felix’s shoulder blades. Felix doesn’t make any effort to move, simply slumps down his hips so gravity can guide them down.

Peter rolls off Felix’s back and lies beside him, staring at his spine. He takes a moment to look at the uneven cut to his friend’s hair. They used to use daggers to keep it short enough to stay out of the way.

The sun is dipping below the horizon just outside of town. It’s winter, so it’s still early, but there’s something about orange light that makes everything sleepy. However, it isn’t until he detects a deep regularity to Felix’s breath that he moves. He grabs a small uneven tuft of blond hair and tugs. “Felix.”

Felix grunts and slowly turns his head, dragging his chin along the sheets until he can rest his cheek on the mattress facing Peter. He’s still hazy, fogged over by the bursts of ecstasy, and a bit unused to the intensity that comes with playing receptive.

And it’s absolutely marvelous.

“What?” He says, slower than normal thanks to the residual warmth lingering behind orgasm.

“You were falling asleep.” Peter goads. “Just like an old man. Don’t go growing up on me now.”

“Never,” Felix says lazily before arching back as though he’s part feline. Resting on his elbows, just barely lifted from the mattress, he asks, almost professionally, “What’s next?”

Peter rolls onto his back. “That is the question, isn’t it? The timeline’s static. We have no more reason to be here. Unless you’ve come to like quaint small town life?” He laughs to the dry look Felix gives him, foggy aftereffects snapping away with the teasing. Though, somehow it doesn’t make either of them uncomfortable.  “So, we have to ask ourselves what Felix really wants.”

Felix quirks his head. A quick snapping motion that, had he been less warm, might’ve cracked his spine. Hope welling inside him, warm and bright like the sun’s warmth as it dips below the horizon.  “Peter?”

Peter’s mouth warps into an odd gaping grin that’s half mischief and half nonchalance. “I’ve been mulling it over. Ways to get to Neverland.”  

And Felix lights up, shooting to his knees. He’s grinning so broadly his teeth make a guest appearance. “You found a way back.”

“Of course I did,” Peter says in a voice just shy of cocky.

The lack of intensity in the bravado, however, lowers Felix’s grin. “What’s wrong?”

“Well,” Peter stims his hand and licks his lips, pushes himself to sit up. “It’s something of a long shot.”

“You never let that bother you before.”

“Well, no. But,” Peter’s entirely serious, voice low and lacking any of its typical tosses and curves. “It'll hurt you.”

Felix recoils. His eyes fall down to the stains in the bedspread. He watches the warm light through the window go dark, his own shadow growing and bleeding into those from the curtains, the bed.

“Fatal?” It’s almost impossible to hear, his voice is so quiet.

“No.”

It’s possibly the most straightforward answer Felix has ever gotten from Peter, and he almost smiles as he gives a long shaky breath, trembling and sustaining in both their lungs.

“Okay.” He nods - of all the possible reactions, he actually nods - says, “Let’s go home.”

 

They wait until the diner below is all abuzz in celebration of the new prince’s christening before slinking out the front door. Everyone’s talking too loudly to hear the bell chime as the stalk out, in the same procession of two that simply became part of the background for the past few days. Never even looking once at the two boys, changed into dirty clothes that still smell like magic, walking with a put-on nonchalance that almost everyone should recognize.

Peter’s more than happy, almost excited to be rid of it. He had enough of living in the background of other people’s lives, has had more than enough of being stashed to the sidelines to wrestle flea-ridden primates.

In Neverland, hopefully, they’ll find a way to reset the board.

They’ll be front and center; in control. Everything pivoting and revolving around them and their needs. Peter will control the length of the days and the power of the rainstorms. He has so missed being a deity.

And Felix will acquire the friends he longs for. If all goes well, it won’t take long for the unloved to find their way to Neverland. And a new generation, a new brotherhood will form.

If optimism wins the case, they won’t have to worry about the island running dry of magic. Won’t have to preserve Pan himself. Therefore, any of the resentments the other boys built wouldn't likely be a factor.

And if they do still have to find a way to immortality, perhaps the new lot will rise to the challenge _gracefully._

It will unfold how it unfolds, and Peter will figure out the specifics later. He can’t let excitement or jitters muddle the surgery.

_Surgery._

Peter allows a brief half smile to quirk in his face. It feels quite a bit like deja vu as they near the town line, a bright red painted streak. It’s befitting they have something so bright marking it off. Storybrooke doesn’t belong here. It doesn’t belong in the Enchanted Forest. The town, in and of itself, is lost.

But now it doesn’t matter.

He takes the dagger hanging on his belt, and sighs the incantation. His eyes are still, although they want to bombard around the forest surroundings and onto the road and the sky. If he squints and makes believe, he might see the royal insignia from the castle in the constellations. Instead, he watches at the bright red town line ignites. High flames, a wall of hellfire that will only stack up to salvation.

They hope.

Felix stands before the light, eyes cast down to the blacktop. A single shadow lies out before him. Lanky and thin. Nearly pathetic. Peter stands beside him, watching him through unreadable eyes.

Neither of them are entirely sure why Peter doesn’t cast a shadow himself. They spent one night back in Neverland doing the guesswork, ultimately deciding that the Shadow they knew so well had infused with Peter's to seal their bond, the servitude, the oddly similar personalities.

Interesting concept though it was, it won't help them now.

Felix takes a deep breath and unsheathes his own tactical knife. They don’t say anything, but Peter nods. He unfurls his fist, throwing a veil of magic over the dark silhouette that becomes more and less defined with the raging heat of the wall of flame before them.

There’s a small moment in which they both feel as though there’s ice in their lungs, holding them still and biting like a thousand little pixies.

It subsides and Felix steps away, the shadow holding still. They quirk a small look at each other, neither serious nor smiling, and descend to their knees, each on one side of the shadow’s leg.

As they make the cut, everything burns white hot. For Peter, it’s as though an ethereal being is choking all the circulation from his leg. For Felix, it’s as though he’s being skinned. A small laceration and then the knife slides up between skin and muscle, stripping the flesh away and letting it wriggle and writhe like the maggots that used to feed off him.

But then, it’s over.

The shadow animates and lifts up to the sky, eyes white like piercing moonlight, still long and skinny, but somehow intimidating. And the best part is, they both feel entirely mended. Neither Peter nor Felix has to do so much as catch their breaths.

A second shadow enters the scene, however, sliding along the ground. “What are you doing?”

Heads bounce up in unison. Here they are, crouched in front of a wall of fire almost reaching the naked canopies. It seems to tinge the sky, as the sun sinks down, into a dangerously bloody red. Just above them, a shadow, living and breathing on its own accord.

It has to be an unsavory appearing scene, but there’s some ease in that they know this particular trespasser won’t turn them in.

Henry steps closer, as though to prove that point.

“We’re going back to Neverland,” Peter says easily.

“What about the magic running out?”

Peter shrugs. “We’re optimistic that was more something the shadow did.”

“But…” Henry gives a vague gesture to the ominous cloud floating above.

Felix holds his arm before the flame, exhibiting his lack of a shadow. Henry seems to get the message, nodding a beat before blowing randomly out the side of his mouth.

“What about Storybrooke?”

Peter cocks a brow and blinks.  “I think we’ve seen enough heroism to last us a millennia or two.”

“Oh.”

“What’s the face?” Felix asks.

Henry shrugs. “You just really seemed to want to help."

"We did," Peter says. "For this situation. Now that you've been born and are going to stay that way...well, this town doesn't _do_ it for us."

"So back to Neverland?"

They nod, give brief description of their plans. Henry knows how awful it felt to be kidnapped by Greg and Tamara and taken to the island, but he can't be wholly against their plan to let this shadow scoop up the unloved and lost either.

It did, after all, give them a place to belong.

They describe how they hope the hourglass was an invention of the shadow who previously occupied the island. They hope that there won't be any time limits, fine print, or hidden clauses.

"And if there are," Peter reasons. "It'll probably be on Felix, since it's his shadow. And he's already got half my heart. So we might've solved that anyway."

Anything might've happened in their absence, though. The island might've seen Armageddon. Perhaps the pixies and fairies and nymphs and all the otherworldly creatures will be back. Maybe the mermaids have reclaimed the tides. The Natives back in the jungle rather than the recesses of the plains and nearby islands they slunk off to.

"The adventures aren't stopping," Felix assures Henry. "But these are more conductive to our tastes."

Henry nods, shuffling his feet in the crunching snow beneath him. "I get it. You belong there; it's your home."

"Do you want to come?" Peter asks, eyes bright and charming just as they'd been the first time.

"What?"

"I promise I won't take your heart this time. I'd rather keep this one honestly."

Henry stops, eyes on the flames behind the boys.

"Come on, you'd like it. Be a Lost Boy. The first of the next generation. You won't get the chance to be a hero, but I assure you, antihero is just as fun. If not more."

Henry digs his hands in his pockets. "I'm not lost."

"Neither am I." Felix says. His words are soft, they might be sweet if not for the bald manner in his voice. It's a fact. The sky is blue. Neverland is home. Felix isn't Lost.

"Well I'm not sleeping with him." Henry mutters, and the three of them laugh for a small moment. It's a random moment or normalcy, calling back to the days Henry was cursed.

They sober momentarily, and Peter asks again. "So? Do you want to come?"

Henry shakes his head. "No. I'm home - _here_."

Both Peter and Felix nod, but Peter - being the stubborn boy he is- gives one final suggestion. "Well, if you change your mind you know what to do. I imagine you've got seven years yet before you'll be too old. But maybe we'll make an exception for eight or nine."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Goodbyes are difficult. Especially for the kid whose life you just saved after attempting to end it. So they don't say anything.

Awkward handshakes follow. Felix clasps him on the back, and then the two turn back to the wall of fire. For a moment, they forget Henry's still watching them.

They each grab into one of the shadow's hands. It's ethereal and only part real. Translucent to their hands, like a fog or dry rain.

The shadow moves fast. Taking them high above the trees into the frosted air. Breathing in snowflakes and feeling the crystals  tickle inside their lungs. Hearts tremor in time to each other and the way the earth churns separately. Temperature rising in anticipation and excitement, not knowing what might lie beyond the second star to the right.

 

**Author's Note:**

>  _What do you think happens afterward? What's Neverland like now? Does Henry decide to become a Lost Boy? Did the hourglass stop now that the shadow's dead?_
> 
> All questions I have answers for, but I'd like to know what you, Reader, think. If you have an idea, tell me in the comments or drop by my askbox on Tumblr (same username) and let me know. Like I said, I've headcanon'd it, but since that fic has about a 2% chance of happening, I'd like to know what you think. 
> 
> Who caught the Snowing parallels? I'm curious. 
> 
>  
> 
> **Thank you so, so, so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it.**
> 
>  
> 
> **  
> **  
> _Acknowledgements_  
>   
> 
> _riki the dark_ \- for her services as a beta, and especially for her hands-on and detailed commentary, despite not knowing a darn thing about _Once Upon a Time_
> 
>  _paintingoncobwebs_ \- for letting me chat to her about it ceaselessly, for persuading me to keep Blue for her scene, and quelling my worries about subtext. 
> 
> _kisaheart_ \- for characterization help and letting me bounce ideas off her. 
> 
> _rory_the_dragon_ \- for characterization help on Henry, in particular. 
> 
> _daughterofklaus_ \- for uploading help


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